Princeton Center for Heliophysics Seminar

Shocks are ubiquitous throughout the universe: around stars, supernova remnants, active galactic nuclei, binary systems, comets, and planets, and are known to be efficient particle accelerators. The workings of collisionless shocks are not fully understood, mainly since parameters such as Mach number and geometry alter how the shock front processes plasma. Astrophysical shocks can only be studied remotely, whereas the heliosphere offers a natural laboratory where shocks can be measured in situ. Although most heliospheric shock research has focused on the Earth's bow shock, interplanetary shocks offer new insights since they are spatially larger, sometimes associated with highly energetic particles, and often exist in a different parameter space. 

Solar Orbiter, a mission developed by the European Space Agency, explores in situ plasma across the inner heliosphere while providing remote-sensing observations of the Sun. The mission aims to study the solar wind and transient structures such as interplanetary shocks, coronal mass injections, and stream interaction regions at varying distances from the Sun. Solar Orbiter has observed over 100 interplanetary shocks, providing further knowledge of their electromagnetic structure and particle interaction. This seminar will discuss our main findings from analysing interplanetary shocks with Solar Orbiter.