Issue |
J. Space Weather Space Clim.
Volume 15, 2025
Topical Issue - Fast and slow solar winds: Origin, evolution and Space Weather effects
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 32 | |
Number of page(s) | 12 | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/swsc/2025027 | |
Published online | 31 July 2025 |
Research Article
Statistical analysis of interplanetary shock waves measured by a Solar Wind Analyzer and a magnetometer onboard the Solar Orbiter mission in 2023
1
Institute of Radio Astronomy of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Mystetstv Street, 4, Kharkiv, 61002, Ukraine
2
Space Research Centre of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Bartycka Street, 18A, Warsaw, 00-716, Poland
* Corresponding author: yakovlev@rian.kharkov.ua
Received:
5
December
2024
Accepted:
19
June
2025
Interplanetary (IP) shock waves are greatly interesting, as they represent significant phenomena in near-Earth space and are direct drivers of geomagnetic and radiation storms. Moreover, various data and parameters are being explored for the identification and characterization of these waves. The spatial dimensions of shock waves vary significantly with the conditions and parameters of the propagating medium. For example, the radii of curvature of the shock wave fronts can vary by several hundred Earth radii or more in the inner heliosphere. In this study, we improved the semi-automated identification of shock waves by analyzing the solar wind and IP magnetic field (MF) parameters. More precisely, we analyzed the data recorded by the Proton Alpha Sensor of the Solar Wind Analyzer (SWA-PAS) and magnetometer (MAG) onboard the Solar Orbiter (SolO) mission. These data were collected and analyzed during the SolO journey around the Sun in 2023 at distances of 0.29–0.95 AU. Employing the developed algorithm, we identified over 40 IP-shock waves that occurred in 2023 using SWA-PAS and MAG. Additionally, we determined and presented a list of shock types and their basic parameters, kinetic and magnetohydrodynamic. The compression ratios, plasma beta βus, angle between the shock normal and upstream MF (θBn), Mach number, and others were among these parameters. Furthermore, we investigated the statistical distributions of the θBn and βus parameters in the upstream region. Finally, the dependence of the number of the identified shock waves as a function of the distance away from the Sun was explored; the number of shocks increased gradually with the increasing heliocentric distance.
Key words: Coronal mass ejection / Interplanetary shock wave / Solar wind / Space weather / Solar Orbiter
© O. Yakovlev et al., Published by EDP Sciences 2025
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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