Meeting abstract

AGU Fall Meeting, San Francisco, 6-10 December 1998

Abstract:
Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are known to be responsible for the generation of interplanetary shock waves throughout the heliosphere. However, a wide variety of different shock types and shock generation processes appear to exist, the details depending on the speed of the CME and its plasma and magnetic field properties. In addition to the familiar ``CME bow shock'' driven by high speed ejections, evidence has been found in the Ulysses mission for forward and reverse shock pairs driven by ``overexpanding'' CMEs. While coronagraph observations have indicated the possible existence of slow mode shocks near the Sun, an exhaustive search of the Ulysses data base has revealed little evidence for them at larger distances. The theory of the generation of these shocks will also be presented, with emphasis on the formation of forward and reverse shocks at large heliocentric distances.