Ion reflection, gyration, and dissipation at supercritical shocks

This brief review emphasizes the following points: (1) Ion reflection is the dominant ion dissipation mechanism at nearly perpendicular, supercritical shocks. (2) An increasing fraction of the ions incident on a supercritical shock is reflected as the Mach number increases. The actual fraction reflected can be predicted using the Rankine-Hugoniot conservation relations. (3) The effective temperature associated with the dispersion in velocity space associated with ion reflection accounts for a large fraction of the temperature rise observed across supercritical, quasi-perpendicular shocks