Simulating the Interaction of a Comet With the Solar Wind Using a Magnetohydrodynamic Model

TL;DR

This paper uses 2D magnetohydrodynamic simulations to explore how a comet interacts with the solar wind, revealing nonlinear phenomena like instabilities and turbulence.

Contribution

It introduces a novel 2D MHD simulation framework for comet-solar wind interactions, incorporating the comet as a spherical ion source.

Findings

Identification of nonlinear phenomena such as instabilities

Effects of varying solar wind parameters on comet characteristics

Observation of turbulence in the simulated interactions

Abstract

We present simulations of a comet interacting with the solar wind. Such simulations are treated in the framework of the ideal, 2D magnetohydrodynamics (MHD), using the FLASH code in order to solve the equations of such a formalism. Besides, the comet is treated as a spherically symmetric source of ions in the equations of MHD. We generate results considering several scenarios, using different values for the physical parameters of the solar wind and of the comet in each case. Our aim is to study the influence of the solar wind on the characteristics of the comet and, given the nonlinear nature of the MHD, we search for the occurrence of phenomena which are typical of nonlinear systems such as instabilities and turbulence.