The structure of radiative shock waves

V. Hydrogen emission lines

¹ Institute for Astronomy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Pyatnitskaya 48, 119017 Moscow, Russia
² Observatoire de Haute-Provence – CNRS, 04870 Saint–Michel l'Observatoire, France

Corresponding author: D. Gillet, gillet@obs-hp.fr

Received: 8 January 2004
Accepted: 11 March 2004

Abstract

We considered the structure of steady-state plane-parallel radiative shock waves propagating through the partially ionized hydrogen gas of temperature  K and density . The upstream Mach numbers range within . In frequency intervals of hydrogen lines the radiation field was treated using the transfer equation in the frame of the observer for the moving medium, whereas the continuum radiation was calculated for the static medium. Doppler shifts in Balmer emission lines of the radiation flux emerging from the upstream boundary of the shock wave model were found to be roughly one-third of the shock wave velocity: . The gas emitting the Balmer line radiation is located at the rear of the shock wave in the hydrogen recombination zone where the gas flow velocity in the frame of the observer is approximately one-half of the shock wave velocity: . The ratio of the Doppler shift to the gas flow velocity of results both from the small optical thickness of the shock wave in line frequencies and the anisotropy of the radiation field typical for the slab geometry. In the ambient gas with density of the flux in the  frequency interval reveals the double structure of the profile. A weaker profile doubling was found for and . The unshifted redward component of the double profile is due to photodeexcitation accompanying the rapid growth of collisional ionization in the narrow layer in front of the discontinuous jump.