Statistics of Terrestrial Bow Shock Parameters from Rankine-Hugoniot Analysis of MMS Measurements

E. Hanson , O. V. Agapitov , F. Mozer , V. Krasnoselskikh (1) , S. Bale , L. A. Avanov , B. L. Giles , R. B. Torbert

1 LPC2E - Laboratoire de Physique et Chimie de l'Environnement et de l'Espace

We have investigated the dependence of shock parameters (speed, normal, and angle between normal and upstream magnetic field) on the choice of upstream and downstream regions for 51 bow shock crossings in MMS Fast Survey data. Preferred upstream and downstream combinations were identified by minimizing RH conservation errors. Comparing parameters from different up/downstream combinations provided a measure of how stream region choices affect the parameters. This statistical analysis yielded a valuable collection of partially-processed shocks for further analysis, with 25 of the 51 having burst-rate observations. The shock statistics and database are described in https://doi.org/10.1029/2019JA027231.

Keywords: Kinetic waves and instabilities; SPACE PLASMA PHYSICS; Particle acceleration; Plasma energization; Shock waves

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]

E. Hanson, O. V. Agapitov, F. Mozer, V. Krasnoselskikh, S. Bale, et al.. Statistics of Terrestrial Bow Shock Parameters from Rankine-Hugoniot Analysis of MMS Measurements. American Geophysical Union, 2020, Online, France. 18 pp. ⟨insu-03560092⟩