Jump conditions at fast shocks in an anisotropic magnetized plasma Original Research Article

In this paper we report on the variations of the magnetic field strength and the plasma parameters across a fast shock as functions of upstream Alfvén Mach numbers and pressure anisotropy downstream of the shock. In our study we consider an oblique shock where the angle between the magnetic field vector and the normal vector upstream of the shock is chosen to be 45°. We further use two threshold conditions of plasma instabilities as additional equations to bound the range of the pressure anisotropy, p⊥/p|, i.e., the criterion of the mirror instability and that of the fire—hose instability. We found that the variations of the parallel pressure, the parallel temperature, as well as the tangential component of the velocity are most sensitive to the pressure anisotropy downstream of the shock, whereas the variations of the plasma density, the normal velocity, the magnetic field strength, and perpendicular pressure and temperature with respect to the magnetic field show much less pronounced dependence on the anisotropy.