Dr. Achim Feldmeier, Astrophysik, Institut fur Physik, University of Potsdam

Dynamics of Radiative-Acoustic Shock Waves

I report on recent progress on hydrodynamic shock waves in winds (from stars or accretion disks) that are accelerated by light scattering in spectral line transitions. Whereas ordinary gas dynamics shocks correspond to abrupt velocity jumps in the flow, radiatiave shocks correspond to kinks in the velocity law. I discuss the equivalent to the Rankine-Hugoniot relations for radiative-acoustic shocks using recent models for corotating interaction regions in O star winds and for (possible) ion decoupling in thin B star winds.