Anomalous flow deflection at earth's low-Alfvén-Mach-Number bow shock

Masaki N Nishino1, Masaki Fujimoto, Tai-Duc Phan

  • 1Institute of Space and Astronautical Science/Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, 3-1-1 Yoshinodai, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 229-8510, Japan. nishino@stp.isas.jaxa.jp

Physical Review Letters
|September 4, 2008
PubMed

Related Concept Videos

Shock Waves01:16

Shock Waves

While deriving the Doppler formula for the observed frequency of a sound wave, it is assumed that the speed of sound in the medium is greater than the source's speed through it. When this condition is breached, a shock wave occurs.
When the source's speed approaches the speed of sound, constructive interference between successive wavefronts emitted by the source occurs immediately behind it. Initially, scientists believed that this constructive interference would result in such high pressures...
General External Flow Characteristics01:26

General External Flow Characteristics

The study of external flow is essential for creating structures and objects that interact efficiently and safely with moving fluids, such as air or water. When a body is immersed in a flowing fluid, it experiences two primary forces: drag, which opposes motion along the flow direction, and lift, which acts perpendicular to the flow. The shape, size, and orientation of the object influence these forces.Streamlined and Blunt Bodies in External FlowObjects in fluid flow are classified as...
Bernoulli's Equation for Flow Normal to a Streamline01:16

Bernoulli's Equation for Flow Normal to a Streamline

Bernoulli's equation for flow normal to a streamline explains how pressure varies across curved streamlines due to the outward centrifugal forces induced by the fluid's curvature. The pressure is higher on the inner side of the curve, near the center of curvature, and decreases outward to balance these centrifugal forces.
The pressure difference depends on the fluid's velocity and radius of curvature. The pressure variation is minimal in flows with nearly straight streamlines. However, the...
Irrotational Flow01:28

Irrotational Flow

Irrotational flow is characterized by fluid motion where particles do not rotate around their axes, resulting in zero vorticity. For a flow to be irrotational, the curl of the velocity field must be zero. This imposes specific conditions on velocity gradients. For instance, to maintain zero rotation about the z-axis, the gradient condition:
Poiseuille's Law and Reynolds Number01:10

Poiseuille's Law and Reynolds Number

Any fluid in a horizontal tube can flow due to pressure differences—fluid flows from high to low pressure. The flow rate (Q) is the ratio of pressure difference and resistance through a horizontal tube. The greater the pressure difference, the higher the flow rate. The flow resistance is expressed as:
Bernoulli's Equation for Flow Along a Streamline01:30

Bernoulli's Equation for Flow Along a Streamline

Bernoulli's equation relates the energy conservation in a fluid moving along a streamline. The equation applies to incompressible and inviscid fluids under steady flow. For such a flow, Newton's second law is applied to a small fluid element, which experiences forces due to pressure differences, gravity, and velocity variations. The force balance leads to the following form of Bernoulli's equation: