Colliding plasma structures: Current sheet and perpendicular shock

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Abstract
We present results of a one‐dimensional simulation of the interaction of a current sheet and a supercritical perpendicular shock in a collisionless plasma. The low‐field region of the current sheet passes through the shock, allowing, for a short time, the complete reflection of the incident flow at the transition of the magnetic field to its downstream value. The counterstreaming ion beams relaunch the shock, while the low‐field region remains downstream. The plasma in the low field region is unshocked but develops a complex multistream configuration, which in time develops to a more uniform distribution. We discuss the implications of the simulation results for observations within the magnetosheath and of active current sheets upstream of the bow shock.