Shock propagation in the outer heliosphere: 3. Pickup ions, MHD, cosmic rays, and energetic particles

Abstract

It has been shown previously that to study the propagation charcteristics of shock waves accurately in the outer helioshpere, the heliospheric model should contain pickup ions (PIs). The inclusion of a magnetic field was also shown to affect shock wave propagation but was found to be far less important than the effect of the PIs. To further this study, we consider here the effect of galactic cosmic rays and energetic particles on interplanetary traveling shock waves in the outer heliosphere. The energetic particles are taken to be protons and are assumed to be produced by injection and acceleration at the shock fronts. The galactic cosmic rays are found to have almost no effect on the shock waves. Depending on their injection efficiency and diffusion coefficient, the energetic protons, on the other hand, can significantly modify the shock structure.