A Plane-Parallel Wind Solution For Testing Numerical Simulations of Photoevaporation

TL;DR

This paper derives a simple, analytic plane-parallel wind solution for photoevaporation, useful as a test case for numerical simulations in astrophysics, especially for protoplanetary disc studies.

Contribution

It introduces a novel, analytically solvable wind model tailored for testing numerical simulations of photoevaporative flows in stratified atmospheres.

Findings

Provides a new analytic solution for photoevaporative winds

Demonstrates the solution's utility as a test problem for simulations

Highlights the solution's simplicity and applicability

Abstract

Here we derive a Parker-wind like solution for a stratified, plane-parallel atmosphere undergoing photoionisation. The difference compared to the standard Parker solar wind is that the sonic point is crossed only at infinity. The simplicity of the analytic solution makes it a convenient test problem for numerical simulations of photoevaporation in protoplanetary discs.