The motion of a losing mass plasmon

Abstract

The interaction of a high velocity clump of gas has been described by the plasmon model, which considers balance between ram pressure and the internal stratified structure of the decelerated clump. In this paper we propose an analytical model to describe the mass loss of such a clump due the interaction with the environment, describing its influence on the plasmon dynamics. We carry out comparisons between an analytic model and axisymetric gasdynamic simulations of plasmon evolution. From our simulations we were able to find the values of the friction constants $\alpha$ and $\lambda$. Comparing with the complete analytic model from which we can infer the position and the mass loss of the clump as function of the clump's density and the environment ratio.