Nonstationarity of a two-dimensional quasiperpendicular supercritical collisionless shock by self-reformation

Abstract

Two-dimensional electromagnetic particle simulations evidence a self-reformation of the shock front for a collisionless supercritical magnetosonic shock propagating at angle θ0 around 90°, where θ0 is the angle between the normal to the shock front and the upstream magnetostatic field. This self-reformation is due to reflected ions which accumulate in front of the shock and is observed (i) in both electric and magnetic components, (ii) for both resistive and nonresistive two-dimensional shocks, and (iii) over a cyclic time period equal to the mean ion gyroperiod measured downstream in the overshoot; resistive effects may be self-consistently included or excluded for θ0≂90° according to a judicious choice of the upstream magnetostatic field orientation. The self-reformation leads to a nonstationary behavior of the shock; however, present results show evidence that the shock becomes stationary for θ less than a critical value θr, below which the self-reformation disappears. Present results are compared to previous works where one/two-dimensional hybrid and particle codes have been used, and to experimental measurements.