Free access article

A&A 436, 9-16 (2005)
DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361:20040364

Damping and wave energy dissipation in the interstellar medium

II. Fast magnetosonic waves

F. Spanier and R. Schlickeiser

Institut für Theoretische Physik, Lehrstuhl IV: Weltraum- und Astrophysik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, 44780 Bochum, Germany
    e-mail: [fspanier;r.schlickeiser]@tp4.rub.de

(Received 1 March 2004 / Accepted 12 February 2005 )

Abstract
The heating rate of the interstellar medium, especially the warm ionized medium, is calculated considering damping of fast magnetosonic waves. Starting with an anisotropic spectrum the energy dissipation rate is derived from the damping rates. The results show that the damping of fast magnetosonic waves is an extraordinarily strong source of heat. The ion-neutral and viscous damping contribute largely to the heating. Furthermore it is shown that one would expect a strong parallelization of the spectrum with exponents well above  .

Key words: magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) -- plasmas -- turbulence -- waves -- ISM: general -- ISM: magnetic fields

© ESO 2005

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