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At least 1,279 records · Page 71
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

CLUSTERS OF SMALL ERUPTIVE FLARES PRODUCED BY MAGNETIC RECONNECTION IN THE SUN

We report on the formation of small solar flares produced by patchy magnetic reconnection between interacting magnetic loops. A three-dimensional (3D) magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) numerical experiment was performed, where a uniform magnetic flux sheet was injected into a fully developed convective layer. The gradual emergence of the field into the solar atmosphere results in a network of magnetic loops, which interact dynamically forming current layers at their interfaces. The formation and ejection of plasmoids out of the current layers leads to patchy reconnection and the spontaneous formation of several small (size ≈1-2 Mm) flares. We find that these flares are short-lived (30 s–3 minutes) bursts of energy in the range O(10{sup 25}-10{sup 27}) erg, which is basically the nanoflare-microflare range. Their persistent formation and co-operative action and evolution leads to recurrent emission of fast EUV/X-ray jets and considerable plasma heating in the active corona.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

EFFECT OF HORIZONTALLY INHOMOGENEOUS HEATING ON FLOW AND MAGNETIC FIELD IN THE CHROMOSPHERE OF THE SUN

The solar chromosphere is heated by damped Alfvén waves propagating upward from the photosphere at a rate that depends on magnetic field strength, producing enhanced heating at low altitudes in the extended weak-field regions (where the additional heating accounts for the radiative losses) between the boundaries of the chromospheric network as well as enhanced heating per particle at higher altitudes in strong magnetic field regions of the network. The resulting inhomogeneous radiation and temperature distribution produces bulk flows, which in turn affect the configuration of the magnetic field. The basic flow pattern is circulation on the spatial scale of a supergranule, with upward flow in the strong-field region; this is a mirror image in the upper chromosphere of photospheric/subphotospheric convection widely associated with the formation of the strong network field. There are significant differences between the neutral and the ionized components of the weakly ionized medium: neutral flow streamlines can form closed cells, whereas plasma is largely constrained to flow along the magnetic field. Stresses associated with this differential flow may explain why the canopy/funnel structures of the network magnetic field have a greater horizontal extent and are relatively more homogeneous at high altitudes than is expected from simple current-free models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

RAYLEIGH-TAYLOR TYPE INSTABILITIES IN THE RECONNECTION EXHAUST JET AS A MECHANISM FOR SUPRA-ARCADE DOWNFLOWS IN THE SUN

Supra-arcade downflows (hereafter referred to as SADs) are low-emission, elongated, finger-like features observed in active region coronae above post-eruption flare arcades. Observations exhibit downward moving SADs intertwined with bright upward growing spikes. Whereas SADs are dark voids, spikes are brighter, denser structures. Although SADs have been observed for more than a decade, the mechanism of the formation of SADs remains an open issue. Using three-dimensional resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulations, we demonstrate that Rayleigh-Taylor-type instabilities develop in the downstream region of a reconnecting current sheet. The instabilities result in the formation of low-density coherent structures that resemble SADs, and high-density structures that appear to be spike-like. Comparison between the simulation results and observations suggests that Rayleigh-Taylor-type instabilities in the exhaust of reconnecting current sheets provide a plausible mechanism for observed SADs.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

BRIGHT HOT IMPACTS BY ERUPTED FRAGMENTS FALLING BACK ON THE SUN: UV REDSHIFTS IN STELLAR ACCRETION

A solar eruption after a flare on 2011 June 7 produced EUV-bright impacts of fallbacks far from the eruption site, observed with the Solar Dynamics Observatory. These impacts can be taken as a template for the impact of stellar accretion flows. Broad redshifted UV lines have been commonly observed in young accreting stars. Here we study the emission from the impacts in the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly's UV channels and compare the inferred velocity distribution to stellar observations. We model the impacts with two-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations. We find that the localized UV 1600 Å emission and its timing with respect to the EUV emission can be explained by the impact of a cloud of fragments. The first impacts produce strong initial upflows. The following fragments are hit and shocked by these upflows. The UV emission comes mostly from the shocked front shell of the fragments while they are still falling, and is therefore redshifted when observed from above. The EUV emission instead continues from the hot surface layer that is fed by the impacts. Fragmented accretion can therefore explain broad redshifted UV lines (e.g., C IV 1550 Å) to speeds around 400 km s{sup –1} observed in accreting young stellar objects.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

HELICAL BLOWOUT JETS IN THE SUN: UNTWISTING AND PROPAGATION OF WAVES

We report on a numerical experiment of the recurrent onset of helical ''blowout'' jets in an emerging flux region. We find that these jets are running with velocities of ∼100-250 km s{sup –1} and they transfer a vast amount of heavy plasma into the outer solar atmosphere. During their emission, they undergo an untwisting motion as a result of reconnection between the twisted emerging and the non-twisted pre-existing magnetic field in the solar atmosphere. For the first time in the context of blowout jets, we provide direct evidence that their untwisting motion is associated with the propagation of torsional Alfvén waves in the corona.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

WHY IS NON-THERMAL LINE BROADENING OF SPECTRAL LINES IN THE LOWER TRANSITION REGION OF THE SUN INDEPENDENT OF SPATIAL RESOLUTION?

Spectral observations of the solar transition region (TR) and corona show broadening of spectral lines beyond what is expected from thermal and instrumental broadening. The remaining non-thermal broadening is significant (5–30 km s{sup −1}) and correlated with intensity. Here we study spectra of the TR Si iv 1403 Å line obtained at high resolution with the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS). We find that the large improvement in spatial resolution (0.″33) of IRIS compared to previous spectrographs (2″) does not resolve the non-thermal line broadening which, in most regions, remains at pre-IRIS levels of about 20 km s{sup −1}. This invariance to spatial resolution indicates that the processes behind the broadening occur along the line-of-sight (LOS) and/or on spatial scales (perpendicular to the LOS) smaller than 250 km. Both effects appear to play a role. Comparison with IRIS chromospheric observations shows that, in regions where the LOS is more parallel to the field, magneto-acoustic shocks driven from below impact the TR and can lead to significant non-thermal line broadening. This scenario is supported by MHD simulations. While these do not show enough non-thermal line broadening, they do reproduce the long-known puzzling correlation between non-thermal line broadening and intensity. This correlation is caused by the shocks, but only if non-equilibrium ionization is taken into account. In regions where the LOS is more perpendicular to the field, the prevalence of small-scale twist is likely to play a significant role in explaining the invariance and correlation with intensity. (letters)

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

RADIAL AND AZIMUTHAL OSCILLATIONS OF HALO CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS IN THE SUN

We present the first observational detection of radial and azimuthal oscillations in full halo coronal mass ejections (HCMEs). We analyze nine HCMEs well-observed by the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) from 2011 February to June. Using the LASCO C3 running difference images, we estimated the instantaneous apparent speeds of the HCMEs in different radial directions from the solar disk center. We find that the development of all these HCMEs is accompanied by quasi-periodic variations of the instantaneous radial velocity with the periods ranging from 24 to 48 minutes. The amplitudes of the instant speed variations reach about a half of the projected speeds. The amplitudes are found to anti-correlate with the periods and correlate with the HCME speed, indicating the nonlinear nature of the process. The oscillations have a clear azimuthal structure in the heliocentric polar coordinate system. The oscillations in seven events are found to be associated with distinct azimuthal wave modes with the azimuthal wave number m = 1 for six events and m = 2 for one event. The polarization of the oscillations in these seven HCMEs is broadly consistent with those of their position angles with the mean difference of 43°. The oscillations may be connected with natural oscillations of the plasmoids around a dynamical equilibrium, or self-oscillatory processes, e.g., the periodic shedding of Alfvénic vortices. Our results indicate the need for an advanced theory of oscillatory processes in coronal mass ejections.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2011

Searching the Allais effect during the total sun eclipse of 11 July 2010

I have measured the precession change of the oscillation plane with an automated Foucault pendulum and found no evidence (within the measurement error) of the Allais effect. The precession speed was registered and, due the variations involved, if the precession speed would changed 0.3 degree per hour (increasing or decreasing the angle of the normal precession speed) during the all eclipse, it would be notice in this measurement.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

Compact dark matter objects, asteroseismology, and gravitational waves radiated by sun

The solar surface oscillations observed by Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and Solar Helioseismic Observatory are considered to be excited by a small fraction of Dark Matter in form of Compact Dark Matter Objects (CDMO) in the solar structure. Gravitational Waves (GW) radiated by these CDMO are predicted to be the strongest at the Earth and are easily detectable by European Laser Interferometer Space Antenna or by Gravitational-Wave Observatory “Dulkyn” which can solve two the most challenging tasks in the modern physics: direct detection of GW and DM.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Evolution of the proton velocity distribution due to stochastic heating in the near-sun solar wind

We investigate how the proton distribution function evolves when the protons undergo stochastic heating by strong, low-frequency, Alfvén-wave turbulence under the assumption that β is small. We apply our analysis to protons undergoing stochastic heating in the supersonic fast solar wind and obtain proton distributions at heliocentric distances ranging from 4 to 30 solar radii. We find that the proton distribution develops non-Gaussian structure with a flat core and steep tail. For r>5 R{sub S}, the proton distribution is well approximated by a modified Moyal distribution. Comparisons with future measurements from Solar Probe Plus could be used to test whether stochastic heating is occurring in the solar-wind acceleration region.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

STRATEGIES IN SEISMIC INFERENCE OF SUPERGRANULAR FLOWS ON THE SUN

Observations of the solar surface reveal the presence of flows with length scales of around 35 Mm, commonly referred to as supergranules. Inferring the subsurface flow profile of supergranules from measurements of the surface and photospheric wavefield is an important challenge faced by helioseismology. Traditionally, the inverse problem has been approached by studying the linear response of seismic waves in a horizontally translationally invariant background to the presence of the supergranule; following an iterative approach that does not depend on horizontal translational invariance might perform better, since the misfit can be analyzed post iterations. In this work, we construct synthetic observations using a reference supergranule and invert for the flow profile using surface measurements of travel times of waves belonging to modal ridges f (surface gravity) and p {sub 1} through p {sub 7} (acoustic). We study the extent to which individual modes and their combinations contribute to infer the flow. We show that this method of nonlinear iterative inversion tends to underestimate the flow velocities, as well as inferring a shallower flow profile, with significant deviations from the reference supergranule near the surface. We carry out a similar analysis for a sound-speed perturbation and find that analogous near-surface deviations persist, although the iterations converge faster and more accurately. We conclude that a better approach to inversion would be to expand the supergranule profile in an appropriate basis, thereby reducing the number of parameters being inverted for and appropriately regularizing them.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

NEW SUNS IN THE COSMOS. III. MULTIFRACTAL SIGNATURE ANALYSIS

In the present paper, we investigate the multifractality signatures in hourly time series extracted from the CoRoT spacecraft database. Our analysis is intended to highlight the possibility that astrophysical time series can be members of a particular class of complex and dynamic processes, which require several photometric variability diagnostics to characterize their structural and topological properties. To achieve this goal, we search for contributions due to a nonlinear temporal correlation and effects caused by heavier tails than the Gaussian distribution, using a detrending moving average algorithm for one-dimensional multifractal signals (MFDMA). We observe that the correlation structure is the main source of multifractality, while heavy-tailed distribution plays a minor role in generating the multifractal effects. Our work also reveals that the rotation period of stars is inherently scaled by the degree of multifractality. As a result, analyzing the multifractal degree of the referred series, we uncover an evolution of multifractality from shorter to larger periods.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Bright hot impacts by erupted fragments falling back on the sun: magnetic channelling

Dense plasma fragments were observed to fall back on the solar surface by the Solar Dynamics Observatory after an eruption on 2011 June 7, producing strong extreme-ultraviolet brightenings. Previous studies investigated impacts in regions of weak magnetic field. Here we model the ∼300 km s{sup −1} impact of fragments channelled by the magnetic field close to active regions. In the observations, the magnetic channel brightens before the fragment impact. We use a 3D-MHD model of spherical blobs downfalling in a magnetized atmosphere. The blob parameters are constrained from the observation. We run numerical simulations with different ambient densitie and magnetic field intensities. We compare the model emission in the 171 Å channel of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly with the observed one. We find that a model of downfall channelled in an ∼1 MK coronal loop confined by a magnetic field of ∼10–20 G, best explains qualitatively and quantitatively the observed evolution. The blobs are highly deformed and further fragmented when the ram pressure becomes comparable to the local magnetic pressure, and they are deviated to be channelled by the field because of the differential stress applied by the perturbed magnetic field. Ahead of them, in the relatively dense coronal medium, shock fronts propagate, heat, and brighten the channel between the cold falling plasma and the solar surface. This study shows a new mechanism that brightens downflows channelled by the magnetic field, such as in accreting young stars, and also works as a probe of the ambient atmosphere, providing information about the local plasma density and magnetic field.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

The Solar Neighborhood. XXXX. Parallax Results from the CTIOPI 0.9 m Program: New Young Stars Near the Sun

As a step toward completing and characterizing the census of the solar neighborhood, we present astrometric, photometric, and spectroscopic observations of 32 systems observed with the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory 0.9 m and 1.5 m telescopes. Astrometry from the 0.9 m indicates that among the 17 systems that had no previous published trigonometric parallaxes, 14 are within 25 pc. In the full sample, nine systems have proper motions larger than 0.″5 yr{sup −1}, including 2MASS J02511490-0352459, which exceeds 2.″0 yr{sup −1}. VRI photometry from the 0.9 m and optical spectra from the 1.5 m indicate that the targets have V = 11–22 mag and spectral types M3.0V–L3.0V. For 2MASS J23062928-0502285 (TRAPPIST-1), we present updated astrometry and photometric variability based on over 12 years of observations. Of the nine binaries in the sample, two promise mass determinations in the next decade: LHS 6167AB, an M4.5V system for which we present an accurate parallax placing the binary at 9.7 pc, and 2MASS J23515048-2537367AB, an M8.5V system at 21.1 pc for which we present the first evidence of an unseen, low-mass companion. Most importantly, Na i and K i gravity indicators, H α measurements, long-term photometric variability, locations on the H-R diagram, and kinematic assessments indicate that as many as 13 of the systems are young, including candidate members of young moving groups, with ages less than ∼120 Myr.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

The McDonald Accelerating Stars Survey (MASS): White Dwarf Companions Accelerating the Sun-like Stars 12 Psc and HD 159062

We present the discovery of a white dwarf companion to the G1 V star 12 Psc found as part of a Keck adaptive optics imaging survey of long-term accelerating stars from the McDonald Observatory Planet Search Program. Twenty years of precise radial-velocity monitoring of 12 Psc with the Tull Spectrograph at the Harlan J. Smith telescope reveals a moderate radial acceleration (≈10 m s{sup −1} yr {sup −1}), which together with relative astrometry from Keck/NIRC2 and the astrometric acceleration between Hipparcos and Gaia DR2 yields a dynamical mass of M {sub B} = 0.605{sub −0.022}{sup +0.021} M {sub ⊙} for 12 Psc B, a semimajor axis of 40{sub −4}{sup +2} au, and an eccentricity of 0.84 ± 0.08. We also report an updated orbital fit of the white dwarf companion to the metal-poor (but barium-rich) G9 V dwarf HD 159062 based on new radial-velocity observations from the High-Resolution Spectrograph at the Hobby–Eberly Telescope and astrometry from Keck/NIRC2. A joint fit of the available relative astrometry, radial velocities, and tangential astrometric acceleration yields a dynamical mass of M {sub B} = 0.609{sub −0.011}{sup +0.010} M {sub ⊙} for HD 159062 B, a semimajor axis of 60{sub −7}{sup +5} au, and preference for circular orbits (e < 0.42 at 95% confidence). 12 Psc B and HD 159062 B join a small list of resolved Sirius-like benchmark white dwarfs with precise dynamical mass measurements which serve as valuable tests of white dwarf mass–radius cooling models and probes of AGB wind accretion onto their main-sequence companions.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2017

ON THE FORMATION OF A STABLE PENUMBRA IN A REGION OF FLUX EMERGENCE IN THE SUN

We studied the formation of the first penumbral sector around a pore in the following polarity of the NOAA Active Region (AR) 11490. We used a high spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution data set acquired by the Interferometric BIdimensional Spectrometer operating at the NSO/Dunn Solar Telescope, as well as data taken by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite. On the side toward the leading polarity, elongated granules in the photosphere and an arch filament system (AFS) in the chromosphere are present, while the magnetic field shows a sea-serpent configuration, indicating a region of magnetic flux emergence. We found that the formation of a stable penumbra in the following polarity of the AR begins in the area facing the opposite polarity located below the AFS in the flux emergence region, different from what was found by Schlichenmaier and colleagues. Moreover, during the formation of the first penumbral sector, the area characterized by magnetic flux density larger than 900 G and the area of the umbra increase.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗