Interplanetary gas dynamics.

Abstract

Observations of the interplanetary medium are considered together with the structure of the solar atmosphere and the kinetic properties of the interplanetary plasma. Methods of gas kinetics and continuum flows are examined, taking into account microscopic and macroscopic representations, the kinetic flow equations, the formal solution of the Vlasov equation, and the continuum flow equations. The collective particle behavior of that interplanetary gas is discussed along with the hydrodynamic coronal expansion, a wave-pump problem, the free expansion phenomenon, and a generalized free expansion problem.