Comparison of Voyager Shocks in Solar Cycle 23 Available to Purchase

Solar cycle 23 was notable for two periods of intense solar activity (or ‘events’ as we shall hereafter refer to them): the ‘Bastille Day Event’ of 2000 and the ‘Halloween Event’ of 2003. In this paper we look at the signatures of the interplanetary shocks produced by these events, in particular the plasma parameters, as observed by Voyager 2 (V2) some six months after the events occurred at Sun. We compare these shocks with other large events observed by V2 during the preceding decade. We note that the plasma parameters, most notably the plasma density, are frequently not as might be expected for “typical” events.