Physics and Gasdynamics of the Heliospheric Interface

During 30 years, a big theoretical effort to understand the physical processes in the heliospheric interface has followed the pioneer papers by Parker (1961) and Baranov et al. (1971). The heliospheric interface is a shell formed by the solar wind interaction with the ionized component of the circumsolar local interstellar medium (LISM). For fully ionized supersonic interstellar plasma two-shocks (the termination shock and the bow shock) and a contact discontinuity (the heliopause) are formed in the solar wind/LISM interaction. However, LISM consists of at least of three components additional to plasma: H-atoms, galactic cosmic rays and magnetic field. The interstellar atoms that penetrate into the solar wind, are ionized there and form pickup ions. A part of the pickup ions is accelerated to high energies of anomalous cosmic rays (ACRs). ACRs may modify the plasma flow upstream the termination shock and in the heliosheath. In this short review I summarize current understanding of the physical and gasdynamical processes in the heliospheric interface, outline unresolved problems and future perspectives. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The influence of pick-up ion-induced wave pressures on the dynamics of the mass-loaded solar wind

The solar wind at larger distances is known to be a multicomponent plasma. The different components, solar ions, pick-up ions, and anomalous ions, are without collisional coupling but they are all coupled to the intrinsic wave turbulences by nonlinear wave-particle interactions. Since quite a long time it is not understood why dynamical processes associated with the loading of the primary solar wind by secondary pick-up ions neither lead to a recognizable heating nor to a deceleration of the solar wind at larger distances. While the inefficient heating seems to be explained by the fact that pick-up ions do not assimilate quickly enough to the solar wind distribution function, the unobservable deceleration of the distant solar wind always remained mysterious. Different from all theoretical approaches up to now, here we intend to show that the wave-induced pick-up ion pressure has to be introduced into the equations of motion in an adequate non-polytropic form to correctly describe the multicomponent plasma dynamics. If this is done it becomes clear that the deceleration of the solar wind is considerably reduced or even vanishing.     

Acceleration of Pick-up Ions at the Solar Wind Termination Shock

It is generally accepted that pick-up ions act as a seed population for anomalous cosmic rays originating at the solar wind termination shock. We believe that the ion pre-acceleration process operating in the heliosphere up to the termination shock can be very important to inject the ions into the shock acceleration process. The pick-up ions pre-accelerated by solar wind turbulences have already a pronounced high energy tail when they reach the shock. Some fraction of these ions can experience further acceleration up to energies of anomalous cosmic rays by means of shock drift and diffusive acceleration. In the present paper the shock drift acceleration of pick-up ions suffering multiple reflection due to abrupt changes in both the strength and direction of the magnetic field through the shock is considered. The reflection process operates for high velocity particles different from the reflection by the electric cross-shock potential. During the first reflection the mean kinetic energy of pick-up ions increases by approximately a factor of 10. Reflected particles have highly anisotropic velocity distribution. Subsequent excursion of the particles in the turbulent upstream flow leads to diffusion in pitch-angle space and, as a result, the particles can return to the shock again suffering, thus, multiple encounters. In order to describe the motion of particles in the upstream and down streamparts of the flow we solve the Fokker-Plank transport equation for anisotropic velocity distribution function. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Injection, Acceleration, and Dynamical Influence of Interstellar Pickup Ions at the Solar Wind Termination Shock

The interaction of interstellar pickup ions with the solar wind termination shock is reviewed and assessed. The pickup ions mass and momentum load the wind and increase its pressure, effects which decrease the strength of the shock and its distance from the Sun. The pickup hydrogen may contribute substantially to the "reflected" ion population, which should provide most of the dissipation at the supercritical quasi-perpendicular shock. A fraction of the pickup ions impinging on the shock is "injected" into the process of diffusive shock acceleration to form the anomalous cosmic ray component. An injection mechanism which accounts for the apparent absence of solar wind ions in the anomalous component is "shock surfing", in which pickup ions which approach the shock slowly may be trapped between the upstream Lorentz force and the shock potential and accelerated in the motional electric field beyond the energy threshold for diffusive shock acceleration. However, the simplest interpretation of shock surfing would favor less massive pickup ion species, in contradiction with Voyager observations of anomalous component composition. A possible extension of the shock surfing mechanism is considered, as well as other injection mechanisms. Finally, the pressure of the anomalous component may modify the structure of the termination shock, which in turn may influence injection rates. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Interplanetary Pick-Up Ion Acceleration A Study of Anisotropic Phase-Space Diffusion

Interplanetary pick-up ions originate from ionizations of neutral interstellar atoms in the heliosphere. Over the past periods it was generally expected that after pick-up by the frozen-in solar wind magnetic fields these ions quickly isotropize in velocity space by strong pitch- angle scattering, they do, however, not assimilate to the ambient solar wind ions. Meanwhile careful investigations of pick-up ion data obtained with the plasma analyzers on AMPTE and ULYSSES could clearly reveal that, especially at periods of flow-aligned fields, noticeably anisotropic distributions must prevail. To better understand the evolutionary tracks of pick-up ions in interplanetary phase-space we carried out an injection study which takes into account all relevant convection and diffusion processes, i.e. describing pitch angle scattering, adiabatic cooling, drifts and energy diffusion. As demonstrated here particles injected at 1 AU establish a distribution function with substantial anisotropies up to distances beyond 6 AU. Only under the action of fairly strong isotropic turbulence levels a trend towards isotropy can be recognized. The bulk velocity of the injected pick-up ions turns out to be remarkably smaller than the solar wind velocity. It also is obvious that pick-ups are strongly spread out from that solar wind plasma parcel into which they were originally implanted. As one consequence it must be concluded that the derivation of interstellar He gas parameters, using He pick-up ion flux data, require appreciable caution. Due to anisotropic spatial diffusion the location of the LISM helium cone axis, i.e. the LISM wind vector, and the LISM helium temperature are hidden in the associated He⁺pick-up ion flux patterns. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Influence of the magnetic field on the density distribution of solar wind protons and cometary ions in the shock layer ahead of cometary ionospheres

The “mass loading” of the solar wind by cometary ions produced by the photoionization of neutral molecules outflowing from the cometary nucleus plays a major role in the interaction of the solar wind with cometary atmospheres. In particular, this process leads to a decrease in the solar wind velocity with a transition from supersonic velocities to subsonic ones through the bow shock. The so-called single-fluid approximation, in which the interacting plasma flows are considered as a single fluid, is commonly used in modeling such an interaction. However, it is occasionally necessary to know the distribution of parameters for the components of the interacting plasma flows. For example, when the flow of the cometary dust component in the interplanetary magnetic field is considered, the dust particle charge, which depends significantly on the composition of the surrounding plasma, needs to be known. In this paper, within the framework of a three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic model of the solar wind flow around cometary ionospheres, we have managed to separately obtain the density distributions of solar wind protons and cometary ions between the bow shock and the cometary ionopause (in the shock layer). The influence of the interplanetary magnetic field on the position of the point of intersection between the densities with the formation of a region near the ionopause where the proton density is essentially negligible compared to the density of cometary ions is investigated. Such a region was experimentally detected by the Vega-2 spacecraft when investigating Comet Halley in March 1986. The results of the model considered below are compared with some experimental data obtained by the Giotto spacecraft under the conditions of flow around Comets Halley and Grigg–Skjellerup in 1986 and 1992, respectively. Unfortunately, our results of calculations on Comet Churyumov–Gerasimenko are only predictive in character, because the trajectory of the Rosetta spacecraft, which manoeuvred near its surface for several months, is complex.     

Global Energy Transfer from Pick-up Ions to Solar Wind Protons

It has been known for years now that pick-up ions (PUIs) are produced by ionization of interstellar neutral atoms in the heliosphere and are then convected outwards with the solar wind flow as a separate suprathermal ion fluid. Only poorly known is the thermal behaviour of these pick-ups while being convected outwards. On the one hand they drive waves since their distribution function is unstable with respect to wave growth, on the other hand they also experience Fermi-2 energizations by nonlinear wave-particle interactions with convected wave turbulences. Here we will show that this complicated network of interwoven processes can quantitatively be balanced when adequate use is made of transport-kinetic results according to which pick-up ions essentially behave isothermally at their convection to large solar distances. We derive the adequate heat source necessary to maintain this pick-up ion isothermy and use the negative of that source to formulate the enthalpy flow conservation for solar wind protons (SWPs). This takes care of a consistent PUI-induced heat source guaranteeing that the net energy balance in the SWP–PUI two-fluid plasma is satisfied. With this PUI-induced heat input to SWPs we not only obtain the well-observed SWP polytropy, but we can also derive an expression for the percentage of intitial pick-up energy fed into the thermal proton energy. By a first-order evaluation of this expression we then can estimate that, dependent on the actual PUI temperature, about 40 to 50% of the initial pick-up energy is globally passed to solar protons within the inner heliosphere.     

Possible crossing of the termination shock in the solar wind by the Voyager 1 spacecraft

The solution of the classical problem of two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) interaction between two shocks (the angle between the interacting shocks and the slope of the magnetic field are arbitrary) obtained by Pushkar' (1995) is applied to the problem of interaction between interplanetary shocks and the solar wind termination shock (TS). The self-consistent kinetic-gasdynamic model of solar wind interaction with the supersonic flow of a three-component (electrons, protons, and hydrogen atoms) interstellar medium developed for the axisymmetric, steady-state case by Baranov and Malama (1993) is used as the stationary background against which the physical phenomenon under consideration takes place. The main physical process in this model is the resonant charge exchange between protons and hydrogen atoms. This paper is a natural continuation of our previous papers (Baranov et al. 1996a, 1996b). However, whereas attention in these papers was focused on the TS interaction with an interplanetary forward shock moving away from the Sun, here we consider the TS interaction with an interplanetary reverse shock (RS) moving toward the Sun with a velocity lower than the solar-wind velocity. We show that the TS-RS interaction can give rise to a new TS' that moves toward the Sun, i.e., toward Voyager 1 and Voyager 2. This phenomenon may be responsible for the unexpected suggestion made by some of the scientists that Voyager 1 already crossed TS in the past year. This conclusion was drawn from the interpretation of the intensity, energy spectra, and angular distributions of ions in the energy range from 10 keV to 40 MeV measured from this spacecraft. Our results show that Voyager 1 could cross TS' rather than TS.     

Interstellar matter and the location of the shock front

The initially supersonic flow of the solar wind passes through a magnetic shock front where its velocity is supposed to be reduced to subsonic values. The location of this shock front is primarily determined by the energy density of the external interstellar magnetic field and the momentum density of the solar wind plasma. Interstellar hydrogen penetrating into the heliosphere undergoes charge exchange processes with the solar wind protons and ionization processes by the solar EUV radiation. This results in an extraction of momentum from the solar wind plasma. Changes of the geometry and the location of the shock front due to this interaction are studied in detail and it is shown that the distance of the magnetic shock front from the Sun decreases from 200 to 80 AU for an increase of the interstellar hydrogen density from 0.1 to 1.0 cm⁻³. The geometry of the shock front is essentially spherical with a pronounced embayment in the direction opposite to the approach of interstellar matter which depends very much on the temperature of the interstellar gas. Due to the energy loss by the interaction with neutral matter the solar wind plasma reduces its velocity with increasing distance from the Sun. This modifies Parker's solution of a constant solar wind velocity.     

Reflection of pre-accelerated pick-up ions at the solar wind termination shock: The seed for anomalous cosmic rays

It has been hypothesized for quite some time that interplanetary pick-up ions due to energization taking place in the region close to the solar wind termination shock, at some fraction and as an outcome of a complicated chain of processes, eventually are converted into species of the anomalous cosmic-ray particles. For the actual conversion efficiency it is of great importance to know the energy distribution of these pick-up ions upon their arrival at the shock. It turns out that pre-acceleration of these ions during their passage through the heliosphere shall substantially increase their chances to become reflected at the shock into the upstream direction which is a prerequisite for a further climb-up in energy by virtue of Fermi-1 acceleration processes. In this paper we start out from stochastically pre-accelerated pick-up ions and investigate their behaviour at the shock. With the use of adiabatic approaches in the de Hoffman-Teller frame of the shock, we calculate the energy distribution function of the reflected part of pick-up ions. From the calculated distribution functions it turns out that the reflected ions in the average suffer an energy increase by about a factor of 10, still not enough to let them move off the shock by spatial diffusion in the upstream direction. Thus, since converted back into the shock, they can undergo repeated reflections and energy gains till the diffusion-convection limit is reached. As we show in addition, the reflection probability for pick-up ions is about a factor of 10 higher than expected from the present literature and strongly varies with the off-axis angle, pointing to the fact that the termination shock represents a surface with a three-dimensionally varying source strength for the production of anomalous cosmic rays. The ACR source pattern is also expected to vary during the solar cycle and the relevant injection energies are expected to be larger by factors of 10 to 100 than the canonically adopted 1 keV nucl^–1.Institute for Problems of Mechanics of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Prospect Vernadskogo 101, 117526, Moscow, Russia.     

Interaction of interplanetary shocks with the bow shock

Fast forward interplanetary (IP) shocks have been identified as a source of large geomagnetic disturbances. However, the shocks can evolve in the solar wind, they are modified by interaction with the bow shock and during their propagation through the magnetosheath. A few previous papers refer the inclination and deceleration of the IP shock front in this region. Our contribution continues this effort and presents the study of an IP shock interaction with the bow shock. Since the bow shock is a reversed fast shock, the interaction of the IP shock and bow shock is a problem of interaction of two fast MHD shocks.

We compare profiles of magnetic field and plasma parameters observed by several spacecraft in the solar wind and magnetosheath with the profiles of the same parameters resulting from the MHD numerical model. The MHD model suggests that the interaction of an IP shock with the bow shock results in an inward bow shock displacement that is followed by its outward motion. Such motion will result in an indentation propagating along the bow shock surface. This scenario is confirmed by multipoint observations. Moreover, the model confirms also previous suggestions on the IP shock deceleration in the magnetosheath.     

Low energy ions in co-rotating interaction regions at 1 AU: Evidence for statistical ion acceleration

The possibility of the statistical acceleration of solar wind ions to energies above 10 keV in the vicinity of co-rotating high speed solar wind streams by scattering from hydromagnetic waves is considered. We find that this process may occur only in the compressed fast stream plasma within the interaction region between the stream interface and the trailing edge, and may account for the energetic ion enhancements observed in this region by Richardson and Zwickl (Planet. Space Sci. 32, 1179, 1984). When statistical acceleration occurs in the outer heliosphere, the accelerated ions may provide a source population for acceleration at the co-rotating reverse shock.     

Properties of energetic water-group ions in the extended pick-up region surrounding comet Giacobini-Zinner

The properties of energetic (65–95 keV) cometary water-group ions in the extended solar wind pick-up region surrounding comet Giacobini-Zinner are examined using data from the EPAS instrument on the ICE spacecraft. In the outer part of this region, extending from cometocentric distances of several hundred thousand to a few million kilometres (the limit of pick-up ion detectability), it is found that large modulations of the ion flux occur (with J_MAX/J_MIN 10²-10³) which are related to the direction of the magnetic field. It is also found that the ions stream in a direction which is intermediate between the directions of the solar wind flow and the E × B drift, and that ions are present at energies somewhat above the local pick-up energy. These properties indicate that the waves which are excited by the unstable “ring-beam” pick-up ion velocity distributions do result in significant scattering of the ions in this region, both in pitch angle and in energy, but that they have insufficient amplitude to scatter the ions into near isotropy in the solar wind frame. Closer to the comet (but still upstream from the bow shock), the ion flux modulations are considerably reduced in amplitude and the ions respond less to the E × B drift, indicating that the ions are scattered nearer to isotropy in this region. Inbound, this transition takes place relatively abruptly at a distance of 4 × 10⁵ km in association with an increase in the solar wind speed, after which the ion flux increases, and ceases to be modulated by the field direction, while the streaming direction is continuously antisolar and unmodulated by the direction of the E × B drift. Outbound, weak vestiges of the ring-beam ion anisotropy are present in the region immediately upstream from the bow shock (at −1 × 10⁵ km), but these become more marked at distances in excess of t4 × 10⁵ km, increasing gradually with increasing distance from the comet. It is shown that the evolution of the ion properties is qualitatively consistent with expectations based on quasi-linear diffusion of the ions by the magnetosonic waves observed during the encounter.     

Interaction of interstellar pick-up ions with the solar wind

The interaction of interstellar pick-up ions with the solar wind is studied by comparing a model for the velocity distribution function of pick-up ions with actual measurements of He⁺ ions in the solar wind. The model includes the effects of pitch-ang'e diffusion due to interplanetary Alfvén waves, adiabatic deceleration in the expanding solar wind and the radial variation of the source function. It is demonstrated that the scattering mean free path is in the range 0.1 AU and that energy diffusion can be neglected as compared with adiabatic deceleration. The effects of adiabatic focusing, of the radial variation of the neutral density and of a variation of the solar wind velocity with distance from the Sun are investigated. With the correct choice of these parameters we can model the measured energy spectra of the pick-up ions reasonably well. It is shown that the measured differential energy density of the pick-up ions does not vary with the solar wind velocity and the direction of the interplanetary magnetic field for a given local neutral gas density and ionization rate. Therefore, the comparison of the model distributions with the measurements leads to a quantitative determination of the local interstellar gas density.Paper dedicated to Professor Hannes Alfvén on the occasion of his 80th birthday, 30 May 1988.     

The Physics and Chemistry of Sputtering by Energetic Plasma Ions

Energetic ions from the solar wind, local pick-up ions or magnetospheric plasma ions impact the atmospheres and surfaces of a number of solar system bodies. These energetic incident ions deposit energy in the gas or solid. This can lead to the ejection of atoms and molecules, a process referred to as sputtering. In this paper we first describe the physics and chemistry of atmospheric and surface sputtering. We then apply this to the production of a thin atmosphere on Europa by magnetospheric ion bombardment of Europa's surface and show that Europa loses more Na atoms than it receives from the Jupiter magnetosphere. The loss of atmosphere from Mars in earlier epochs by pick-up ion sputtering of that atmosphere is also calculated. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The influence of the anomalous cosmic-ray component on the dynamics of the solar wind

It is well known that both the galactic and anomalous cosmic rays show positive intensity gradients in the outer heliosphere which are connected with corresponding pressure gradients. Due to an efficient dynamical coupling between the solar wind plasma and these highly energetic media by means of convected MHD turbulences, there exists a mutual interaction between these media. As one consequence of this scenario the enforced pressure gradients influence the distant solar wind expansion. Here we concentrate in our theoretical study on the interaction of the solar wind only with the anomalous cosmic-ray component. We use the standard two-fluid model in which the cosmic-ray fluid modifies the solar wind flow via the cosmic-ray pressure gradient. Then we derive numerical solutions in the following steps: first we calculate an aspherical pressure distribution for the anomalous cosmic rays, describing their diffusion in an unperturbed radial solar wind. Second, we then consider the perturbation of the solar wind flow due to these induced anomalous cosmic-ray pressure gradients. Within this context we especially take account of the action of a non-spherical geometry of the heliospheric shock which may lead to pronounced upwinddownwind asymmetries in the pressures and thereby in the resulting solar wind flows. As we can show in our model, which fits the available observational data, radial decelerations of the distant solar wind by between 5 to 11% are to be expected, however, the deviations of the bulk solar wind flow from the radialdirections are only slightly pronounced.     

The solar wind interaction with Venus through the eyes of the Pioneer Venus Orbiter

Venus has no internal magnetic dynamo and thus its ionosphere and hot oxygen exosphere dominate the interaction with the solar wind. The solar wind at 0.72 AU has a dynamic pressure that ranges from 4.5 nPa (at solar max) to 6.6 nPa (at solar min), and its flow past the planet produces a shock of typical magnetosonic Mach number 5 at the subsolar point. At solar maximum the pressure in the ionospheric plasma is sufficient to hold off the solar wind at an altitude of 400 km above the surface at the subsolar point, and 1000 km above the terminators. The deflection of the solar wind occurs through the formation of a magnetic barrier on the inner edge of the magnetosheath, or shocked solar wind. Under typical solar wind conditions the time scale for diffusion of the magnetic field into the ionosphere is so long that the ionosphere remains field free and the barrier deflects almost all the incoming solar wind. Any neutral atoms of the hot oxygen exosphere that reach the altitude of the magnetosheath are accelerated by the electric field of the flowing magnetized plasma and swept along cycloidal paths in the antisolar direction. This pickup process, while important for the loss of the Venus atmosphere, plays a minor role in the deceleration and deflection of the solar wind. Like at magnetized planets, the Venus shock and magnetosheath generate hot electrons and ions that flow back along magnetic field lines into the solar wind to form a foreshock. A magnetic tail is created by the magnetic flux that is slowed in the interaction and becomes mass-loaded with thermal ions.The structure of the ionosphere is very much dependent on solar activity and the dynamic pressure of the solar wind. At solar maximum under typical solar wind conditions, the ionosphere is unmagnetized except for the presence of thin magnetic flux ropes. The ionospheric plasma flows freely to the nightside forming a well-developed night ionosphere. When the solar wind pressure dominates over the ionospheric pressure the ionosphere becomes completely magnetized, the flow to the nightside diminishes, and the night ionosphere weakens. Even at solar maximum the night ionosphere has a very irregular density structure. The electromagnetic environment of Venus has not been well surveyed. At ELF and VLF frequencies there is noise generated in the foreshock and shock. At low altitude in the night ionosphere noise, presumably generated by lightning, can be detected. This paper reviews the plasma environment at Venus and the physics of the solar wind interaction on the threshold of a new series of Venus exploration missions.     

Comparative investigation of the terrestrial and Venusian magnetopause: Kinetic modeling and experimental observations by Cluster and Venus Express

In June 2006 Venus Express crossed several times the outer boundary of Venus induced magnetosphere, its magnetosheath and its bow shock. During the same interval the Cluster spacecraft surveyed the dawn flank of the terrestrial magnetosphere, intersected the Earth's magnetopause and spent long time intervals in the magnetosheath. This configuration offers the opportunity to perform a joint investigation of the interface between Venus and Earth's outer plasma layers and the shocked solar wind. We discuss the kinetic structure of the magnetopause of both planets, its global characteristics and the effects on the interaction between the planetary plasma and the solar wind. A Vlasov equilibrium model is constructed for both planetary magnetopauses and provides good estimates of the magnetic field profile across the interface. The model is also in agreement with plasma data and evidence the role of planetary and solar wind ions on the spatial scale of the equilibrium magnetopause of the two planets. The main characteristics of the two magnetopauses are discussed and compared.     

Signatures of the Interplanetary Helium Cone Reflected by Pick-up Ions

As known for a long time, interstellar wind neutral helium atoms deeply penetrate into the inner heliosphere and, when passing through the solar gravity field, form a strongly pronounced helium density cone in the downwind direction. Helium atoms are photoionized and picked-up by the solar wind magnetic field, but as pick-up ions they are not simply convected outwards with the solar wind in radial directions as assumed in earlier publications. Rather they undergo a complicated diffusion-convection process described here by an appropriate kinetic transport equation taking into account adiabatic cooling and focusing, pitch angle scattering and energy diffusion. In this paper, we solve this equation for He⁺pick-up ions which are injected into the solar wind mainly in the region of the helium cone. We show the resulting He⁺pick-up ion density profile along the orbit of the Earth in many respects differs from the density profile of the neutral helium cone: depending on solar-wind-entrained Alfvénic turbulence levels, the density maximum when looking from the Earth to the Sun is shifted towards the right side of the cone, the ratio of peak-densities to wing-densities varies and a left-to-right asymmetry of the He⁺-density profile is pronounced. Derivation of interstellar helium parameters from these He⁺-structures, such as the local interstellar medium (LISM) wind direction, LISM velocity and LISM temperature, are very much impeded. In addition, the pitch-angle spectrum of He⁺pick-up ions systematically becomes more anisotropic when passing from the left to the right wing of the cone structure. All effects mentioned are more strongly pronounced in high velocity solar wind compared to the low velocity solar wind.     

Geoeffectiveness of magnetic cloud, shock/sheath, interaction region, high-speed stream and their combined occurrence

A subset of CMEs, called interplanetary magnetic clouds (MCs), are observed to have systematic rotation [northward to southward (NS) or southward to northward (SN)] in their field structures. These MCs identified in the heliospheric plasma and field data at 1 AU may have different features associated with them. These structures (NS/SN) may be isolated MC moving with the ambient solar wind. MCs (NS/SN) may also be associated with shock/sheath region, formed due to compression of the ambient plasma/field ahead of them. A fraction from each of these four types of MCs have additional features, being ‘pushed’ by fast solar wind streams from coronal holes, forming interaction region (IR) between MCs and high-speed solar wind streams (HSS). Using these different sets of MCs, we have done a detailed study of the geoeffectiveness of NS and SN turning MCs and their associated features (shock/sheath, IR and HSS). To study the process that produces the geomagnetic disturbances and influences its amplitude/duration, we have utilized the interplanetary plasma and field parameters, namely, plasma velocity, density, temperature, pressure, field strength and its north-south component, during the passage of these structures with different associated properties. Differences in the geoeffectiveness of MCs with different structural and dynamical properties have been identified. The possible role of high-speed stream in influencing the recovery time (and hence duration) of geomagnetic disturbance has also been investigated. A best-fit equation representing the relation between level of the geomagnetic activity (due to MCs) and interplanetary plasma/field parameter has been obtained.