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G. E. Ciolek, W. G. Roberge (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
We investigate the effects of dust grains on the formation, propagation, and structure of nonlinear MHD waves and shocks in weakly-ionized plasmas. The plasma is modeled as a system of 9 interacting fluids, consisting of neutral gas, ions, electrons, and 6 grain fluids comprised of very small grains or PAHs and classical grains in different charge states. We formulate the governing equations for perpendicular shocks under approximations appropriate for dense molecular clouds, cores, and protostellar disks. A numerical code used to obtain solutions using a finite difference method is described, and its accuracy is established by comparing numerical solutions to exact solutions for special cases.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: cioleg@rpi.edu