Transient shocks beyond the heliopause

The heliopause is a rich, dynamic surface affected by the time-dependent solar wind. Stream interactions due to coronal mass ejections (CMEs), corotating interaction regions (CIRs), and other transient phenomena are known to merge producing global merged interaction regions (GMIRs). Numerical simulations of the solar wind interaction with the local interstellar medium (LISM) show that GMIRs, as well other time-dependent structures in the solar wind, may produce compression/rarefaction waves and shocks in the LISM behind the heliopause. These shocks may initiate wave activity observed by the Voyager spacecraft. The magnetometer onboard Voyager 1 indeed observed a few structures that may be interpreted as shocks. We present numerical simulations of such shocks in the year of 2000, when both Voyager spacecraft were in the supersonic solar wind region, and in 2012, when Voyager 1 observed traveling shocks. In the former case, Voyager observations themselves provide time- dependent boundary conditions in the solar wind. In the latter case, we use OMNI data at 1 AU to analyze the plasma and magnetic field behavior after Voyager 1 crossed the heliospheric boundary. Numerical results are compared with spacecraft observations.