| Issue |
EAS Publications Series
Volume 58, 2012
ECLA - European Conference on Laboratory Astrophysics
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Page(s) | 91 - 94 | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/eas/1258014 | |
| Published online | 13 February 2013 | |
C. Stehlé, C. Joblin and L. d’Hendecourt (eds)
EAS Publications Series, 58 (2012) 91-94
The role of the magnetosonic Mach number on the evolution of Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices
1 Institut Jean Lamour, UMR 7198 CNRS –
Nancy University, Nancy, France
2 Laboratoire de Physique des
Interactions Ioniques et Moléculaires, UMR 6633 CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université,
Marseille,
France
3 Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di
Pisa, Pisa,
Italy
4 Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas,
CNRS, École Polytechnique, UPMC, Université Paris Sud-11, Saint Maur-des-Fossés,
France
We review the main results of our previous works, in which we have investigated the development of the Kelvin-Helmholtz (KH) instability in the transitional regime from sub-magnetosonic to super-magnetosonic by varying the solar wind velocity, in conditions typical of those observed at the Earth’s magnetopause flanks. In super-magnetosonic regimes, we show that the vortices produced by the development of the KH instability act as an obstacle in the plasma flow and may generate quasi-perpendicular magnetosonic shock structures extending well outside the region of velocity shear.
© The Author(s) 2013