ELECTRON KINETIC EFFECTS IN SWITCH-OFF SLOW SHOCKS

Numerical simulations of the slow-mode switch-off shock with kinetic electrons give significantly different results from hybrid simulations with fluid electrons. With appropriate downstream boundary conditions there results a more coherent and more strongly damped trailing magnetic wave with fewer back-streaming ions than with the hybrid model under the same conditions. Evidently, kinetic effects cause a more equal sharing of shock-induced entropy increases between ions and electrons, which results in lower ion temperatures downstream and greater electron energy transport from downstream to upstream.