Global Hybrid Simulations of the Bow Shock and Its Interaction with Interplanetary Discontinuities

太阳风与地球磁层的相互作用产生了激波锋面。上游地区被称为前震，已被发现具有非常复杂的时空结构。同样，在磁层顶和弓激波之间的鞘区域内，可能有复杂的结构，据信会在磁层中引起各种瞬变事件。离子的动力学效应在太阳风与弓激波的相互作用中起着重要作用，而将等离子体视为单组分流体的磁流体动力学(MHD)模拟不足以理解这一区域的物理。该项目将利用使用高分辨率混合代码的2-D和3-D模拟来研究相互作用。要研究的主要问题是：(1)弯曲弓激波的结构，包括准平行和准垂直激波，前震和激波-粒子相互作用的时空变化，以及(2)行星际不连续与弓激波的相互作用，特别是热流异常(HFA)。

The interaction of the solar wind with the Earth's magnetosphere produces a shock front. The upstream region, referred to as the foreshock, has been found to have very complicated spatial and temporal structures. Similarly within the sheath region between the magnetopause and the bow shock there can be complex structures that are believed to cause various transient events in the magnetosphere. The kinetic effects of the ions play an important role in the interactions of the solar wind with the bow shock and magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations, which treat the plasma a single component fluid, are not adequate for understanding the physics of this region. This project will utilize 2-D and 3-D simulations using a high-resolution hybrid code to study the interactions. The primary topics to be investigated are: (1) the structure of the curved bow shock, including quasi-parallel and quasi-perpendicular shocks, the spatial and temporal variations in the foreshock and shock-particle interactions, and (2) the interaction of interplanetary discontinuities with the bow shock, with particular emphasis on hot flow anomalies (HFAs).