Radiative shock (source code)

= Radiative shock

A <shock wave> with significant radiation losses in its downstream evolution. Often a narrow dissipative jump initially heats the gas according to adiabatic <Rankine-Hugoniot conditions>, followed by a much longer <radiative cooling> layer. The gas's <specific entropy> increases at the jump and may then fall as radiation carries <entropy> away. If both distant states have equal <temperature>, the combined <mass> and <momentum> balances give an <isothermal shock>; the gas's <energy> flux is not conserved across the whole radiating region.