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At least 1,549 records · Page 86
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2014

Statistical study of reconnection exhausts in the solar wind

Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process that changes magnetic field configuration and converts a magnetic energy to flow energy and plasma heating. This paper presents a survey of the plasma and magnetic field parameters inside 418 reconnection exhausts identified in the WIND data from 1995-2012. The statistical analysis is oriented on the re-distribution of the magnetic energy released due to reconnection between a plasma acceleration and its heating. The results show that both the portion of the energy deposited into heat as well as the energy spent on the acceleration of the exhaust plasma rise with the magnetic shear angle in accord with the increase of the magnetic flux available for reconnection. The decrease of the normalized exhaust speed with the increasing magnetic shear suggests a decreasing efficiency of the acceleration and/or the increasing efficiency of heating in high-shear events. However, we have found that the already suggested relation between the exhaust speed and temperature enhancement would be rather considered as an upper limit of the plasma heating during reconnection regardless of the shear angle.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

STATISTICAL ANALYSIS OF INTERFEROMETRIC MEASUREMENTS OF AXIS RATIOS FOR CLASSICAL Be STARS

This work presents a novel method to estimate the effective opening angle of CBe star disks from projected axis ratio measurements, obtained by interferometry using a statistical approach. A Monte Carlo scheme was used to generate a large set of theoretical axis ratios from disk models using different distributions of disk densities and opening angles. These theoretical samples were then compared to observational samples, using a two-sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, to determine which theoretical distribution best reproduces the observations. The results suggest that the observed ratio distributions in the K, H, and N band can best be explained by the presence of thin disks, with opening half-angles of the order of 0.°15-4.°0. Results for measurements over the Hα line point toward slightly thicker disks, 3.°7-14°, which is consistent with a flaring disk predicted by the viscous disk model.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

A COMPREHENSIVE STATISTICAL ASSESSMENT OF STAR-PLANET INTERACTION

We investigate whether magnetic interaction between close-in giant planets and their host stars produce observable statistical enhancements in stellar coronal or chromospheric activity. New Chandra observations of 12 nearby (d < 60 pc) planet-hosting solar analogs are combined with archival Chandra, XMM-Newton, and ROSAT coverage of 11 similar stars to construct a sample inoculated against inherent stellar class and planet-detection biases. Survival analysis and Bayesian regression methods (incorporating both measurements errors and X-ray upper limits; 13/23 stars have secure detections) are used to test whether ''hot Jupiter'' hosts are systematically more X-ray luminous than comparable stars with more distant or smaller planets. No significant correlations are present between common proxies for interaction strength (M {sub P}/a {sup 2} or 1/a) versus coronal activity (L {sub X} or L {sub X}/L {sub bol}). In contrast, a sample of 198 FGK main-sequence stars does show a significant (∼99% confidence) increase in X-ray luminosity with M {sub P}/a {sup 2}. While selection biases are incontrovertibly present within the main-sequence sample, we demonstrate that the effect is primarily driven by a handful of extreme hot-Jupiter systems with M {sub P}/a {sup 2} > 450 M {sub Jup} AU{sup –2}, which here are all X-ray luminous but to a degree commensurate with their Ca II H and K activity, in contrast to presented magnetic star-planet interaction scenarios that predict enhancements relatively larger in L {sub X}. We discuss these results in the context of cumulative tidal spin-up of stars hosting close-in gas giants (potentially followed by planetary infall and destruction). We also test our main-sequence sample for correlations between planetary properties and UV luminosity or Ca II H and K emission, and find no significant dependence.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

A STATISTICAL STUDY OF THE SOLAR WIND TURBULENCE AT ION KINETIC SCALES USING THE K-FILTERING TECHNIQUE AND CLUSTER DATA

Plasma turbulence at ion kinetic scales in the solar wind is investigated using the multi-point magnetometer data from the Cluster spacecraft. By applying the k-filtering method, we are able to estimate the full three-dimensional power spectral density P(ω{sub sc}, k) at a certain spacecraft frequency ω{sub sc} in wavevector (k) space. By using the wavevector at the maximum power in P(ω{sub sc}, k) at each sampling frequency ω{sub sc} and the Doppler shifted frequency ω{sub pla} in the solar wind frame, the dispersion plot ω{sub pla} = ω{sub pla}(k) is found. Previous studies have been limited to very few intervals and have been hampered by large errors, which motivates a statistical study of 52 intervals of solar wind. We find that the turbulence is predominantly highly oblique to the magnetic field k >> k {sub ∥}, and propagates slowly in the plasma frame with most points having frequencies smaller than the proton gyrofrequency ω{sub pla} < Ω{sub p}. Weak agreement is found that turbulence at the ion kinetic scales consists of kinetic Alfvén waves and coherent structures advected with plasma bulk velocity plus some minor more compressible components. The results suggest that anti-sunward and sunward propagating magnetic fluctuations are of similar nature in both the fast and slow solar wind at ion kinetic scales. The fast wind has significantly more anti-sunward flux than sunward flux and the slow wind appears to be more balanced.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

STATISTICAL AND SCALING FEATURES OF FLUCTUATIONS IN THE DISSIPATION RANGE DURING A RECONNECTION EVENT

Reconnection events in space plasmas are accompanied by the occurrence of large-amplitude turbulent fluctuations of the magnetic and electric field, covering a wide range of temporal and spatial scales. Here, we study the scaling and statistical features of magnetic and electric field fluctuations below the ion-gyroperiod (i.e., in the dissipation domain) by carefully investigating the occurrence of local or global scaling features during a reconnection event studied by Eastwood et al . Our results point toward the presence of a global scale invariance, i.e., a mono-fractal nature, of fluctuations above the ion-cyclotron frequency and at spatial scales near the ion-inertial length.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

STATISTICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF ELEMENTAL ABUNDANCE RATIOS: OBSERVATIONS FROM THE ACE SPACECRAFT

We statistically analyze the elemental galactic cosmic ray (GCR) composition measurements of elements 5 ≤ Z ≤ 28 within the energy range 30–500 MeV/nucleon from the CRIS instrument on board the ACE spacecraft in orbit about the L1 Lagrange point during the period from 1997 to 2014. Similarly to the last unusual solar minimum, the elevated elemental intensities of all heavy nuclei during the current weak solar maximum in 2014 are ∼40% higher than that of the previous solar maximum in 2002, which has been attributed to the weak modulation associated with low solar activity levels during the ongoing weakest solar maximum since the dawn of space age. In addition, the abundance ratios of heavy nuclei with respect to elemental oxygen are generally independent of kinetic energy per nucleon in the energy region 60–200 MeV/nuc, in good agreement with previous experiments. Furthermore, the abundance ratios of most relatively abundant species, except carbon, exhibit considerable solar-cycle variation, which are obviously positively correlated with the sunspot numbers with about one-year time lag. We also find that the percentage variation of abundance ratios for most elements are approximately identical. These preliminary results provide valuable insights into the characteristics of elemental heavy nuclei composition and place new and significant constraints on future GCR heavy nuclei propagation and modulation models.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

STATISTICAL STUDY OF STRONG AND EXTREME GEOMAGNETIC DISTURBANCES AND SOLAR CYCLE CHARACTERISTICS

We study the relation between strong and extreme geomagnetic storms and solar cycle characteristics. The analysis uses an extensive geomagnetic index AA data set spanning over 150 yr complemented by the Kakioka magnetometer recordings. We apply Pearson correlation statistics and estimate the significance of the correlation with a bootstrapping technique. We show that the correlation between the storm occurrence and the strength of the solar cycle decreases from a clear positive correlation with increasing storm magnitude toward a negligible relationship. Hence, the quieter Sun can also launch superstorms that may lead to significant societal and economic impact. Our results show that while weaker storms occur most frequently in the declining phase, the stronger storms have the tendency to occur near solar maximum. Our analysis suggests that the most extreme solar eruptions do not have a direct connection between the solar large-scale dynamo-generated magnetic field, but are rather associated with smaller-scale dynamo and resulting turbulent magnetic fields. The phase distributions of sunspots and storms becoming increasingly in phase with increasing storm strength, on the other hand, may indicate that the extreme storms are related to the toroidal component of the solar large-scale field.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Statistical properties of solar coronal bright points

Here, we aim to study the statistical properties (i.e., spatial, temporal, and magnetic structures) of extreme ultraviolet coronal bright points (CBPs) observed by SDO during a 4.4 yr period (2010 June 1 to 2014 October 31). We developed the automatic detection method for CBPs based on the machine-learning technique and Zernike image moments. The average number and the mean density of CBPs are estimated to be about 572 (per full disk image taken at 193 Å) and 1.9×10{sup −4} Mm{sup −2}, respectively. There is a negative correlation (−0.7) between the number of CBPs and the number of sunspots. The size and lifetime frequency distribution of CBPs show the lognormal and power-law (exponent equal to −1.6) behaviors, respectively. The relationship between the lifetime and size of CBPs is clearly treated by a power-law function with an exponent equal to 0.13. Around 1.3% of the solar surface is covered by the bright cores of CBPs and 2.6% of that is covered by their total area. About 52% of CBPs have lifetimes of less than 20 minutes and the remaining 48% have mean lifetimes of 6 hr. More than 95% of CBPs with lifetimes of less than 20 hr and nine CBPs with lifetimes of more than 72 hr are detected. The average number of the new CBPs emerging every 45 s in the whole of the Sun is about 27 ± 3. The temporal self-affinity of the time series of CBPs that emerged, indexed by the Hurst exponent determined using both detrended fluctuation analysis and R/S analysis, is 0.78. This long-temporal correlation suggests that CBPs form a system of self-organized criticality.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

A STATISTICAL SURVEY OF DYNAMIC PRESSURE PULSES IN THE SOLAR WIND BASED ON WIND OBSERVATIONS

Solar wind dynamic pressure pulse (DPP) structures, across which the dynamic pressure changes abruptly over timescales from a few seconds to several minutes, are often observed in the near-Earth space environment. The space weather effects of DPPs on the magnetosphere–ionosphere coupling system have been widely investigated in the last two decades. In this study, we perform a statistical survey on the properties of DPPs near 1 AU based on nearly 20 years of observations from the WIND spacecraft. It is found that only a tiny fraction of DPPs (around 4.2%) can be regarded as interplanetary shocks. For most DPPs, the total pressure (the sum of the thermal pressure and magnetic pressure) remains in equilibrium, but there also exists a small fraction of DPPs that are not pressure-balanced. The overwhelming majority of DPPs are associated with solar wind disturbances, including coronal mass ejection-related flows, corotating interaction regions, as well as complex ejecta. The annual variations of the averaged occurrence rate of DPPs are roughly in phase with the solar activity during solar cycle 23, and during the rising phase of solar cycle 24.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

The five planets in the Kepler-296 binary system all orbit the primary: A Statistical and analytical analysis

Kepler-296 is a binary star system with two M-dwarf components separated by 0.″2. Five transiting planets have been confirmed to be associated with the Kepler-296 system; given the evidence to date, however, the planets could in principle orbit either star. This ambiguity has made it difficult to constrain both the orbital and physical properties of the planets. Using both statistical and analytical arguments, this paper shows that all five planets are highly likely to orbit the primary star in this system. We performed a Markov-Chain Monte Carlo simulation using a five transiting planet model, leaving the stellar density and dilution with uniform priors. Using importance sampling, we compared the model probabilities under the priors of the planets orbiting either the brighter or the fainter component of the binary. A model where the planets orbit the brighter component, Kepler-296A, is strongly preferred by the data. Combined with our assertion that all five planets orbit the same star, the two outer planets in the system, Kepler-296 Ae and Kepler-296 Af, have radii of 1.53 ± 0.26 and 1.80 ± 0.31 R{sub ⊕}, respectively, and receive incident stellar fluxes of 1.40 ± 0.23 and 0.62 ± 0.10 times the incident flux the Earth receives from the Sun. This level of irradiation places both planets within or close to the circumstellar habitable zone of their parent star.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

STATISTICAL COMPARISON BETWEEN PORES AND SUNSPOTS BY USING SDO/HMI

We carried out an extensive statistical study of the properties of pores and sunspots, and investigated the relationship among their physical parameters such as size, intensity, magnetic field, and the line-of-sight (LOS) velocity in the umbrae. For this, we classified 9881 samples into three groups of pores, transitional sunspots, and mature sunspots. As a result, (1) we find that the total magnetic flux inside the umbra of pores, transitional sunspots, and mature sunspots increases proportionally to the powers of the area and the power indices in the three groups significantly differ from each other. (2) The umbral area distribution of each group shows a Gaussian distribution and they are clearly separated, displaying three distinct peak values. All of the quantities significantly overlap among the three groups. (3) The umbral intensity shows a rapid decrease with increasing area, and their magnetic field strength shows a rapid increase with decreasing intensity. (4) The LOS velocity in pores is predominantly redshifted and its magnitude decreases with increasing magnetic field strength. The decreasing trend becomes nearly constant with marginal blueshift in the case of mature sunspots. The dispersion of LOS velocities in mature sunspots is significantly suppressed compared to pores. From our results, we conclude that the three groups have different characteristics in their area, intensity, magnetic field, and LOS velocity as well in their relationships.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

SUPERFLARES ON SOLAR-TYPE STARS OBSERVED WITH KEPLER. I. STATISTICAL PROPERTIES OF SUPERFLARES

By extending our previous study by Maehara et al., we searched for superflares on G-type dwarfs (solar-type stars) using Kepler data for a longer period (500 days) than that (120 days) in our previous study. As a result, we found 1547 superflares on 279 G-type dwarfs, which is much more than the previous 365 superflares on 148 stars. Using these new data, we studied the statistical properties of the occurrence rate of superflares, and confirmed the previous results, i.e., the occurrence rate (dN/dE) of superflares versus flare energy (E) shows a power-law distribution with dN/dE∝E {sup –α}, where α ∼ 2. It is interesting that this distribution is roughly similar to that for solar flares. In the case of the Sun-like stars (with surface temperature 5600-6000 K and slowly rotating with a period longer than 10 days), the occurrence rate of superflares with an energy of 10{sup 34}-10{sup 35} erg is once in 800-5000 yr. We also studied long-term (500 days) stellar brightness variation of these superflare stars and found that in some G-type dwarfs the occurrence rate of superflares was extremely high, ∼57 superflares in 500 days (i.e., once in 10 days). In the case of Sun-like stars, the most active stars show a frequency of one superflare (with 10{sup 34} erg) in 100 days. There is evidence that these superflare stars have extremely large starspots with a size about 10 times larger than that of the largest sunspot. We argue that the physical origin of the extremely high occurrence rate of superflares in these stars may be attributed to the existence of extremely large starspots.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Statistical uncertainties of a chiral interaction at next-to-next-to leading order

In this paper, we have quantified the statistical uncertainties of the low-energy coupling-constants (LECs) of an optimized nucleon–nucleon interaction from chiral effective field theory at next-to-next-to-leading order. Finally, in addition, we have propagated the impact of the uncertainties of the LECs to two-nucleon scattering phase shifts, effective range parameters, and deuteron observables.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2022

Statistics of internal stress fluctuations in dislocated crystals and relevance to density-based dislocation dynamics models

A statistical analysis of internal stress fluctuations, defined as the difference between the local mean stress and stress on dislocations, is presented for deforming crystals with 3D discrete dislocation systems. Dislocation realizations are generated using dislocation dynamics simulations and the associated stress field is computed as a superposition of a regularized stress field of dislocation lines within the domain of the solution and a complementary stress field computed via a finite-element boundary value problem. The internal stress fluctuations of interest are defined by an ensemble of the difference between the stress on dislocation lines and the local mean field stress in the crystal. The latter is established in a piecewise fashion over small voxels in the crystal thus allowing the difference between the local average stress and stress on segments to be easily estimated. The results show that the Schmid stress (resolved shear stress) and Escaig stress fluctuations on various slip systems sampled over a random set of points follow a Cauchy (Lorentz) distribution at all strain levels, with the amplitude and width of the distribution being dependent on the strain. Finally, the implications of the Schmid and Escaig internal stress fluctuations are discussed from the points of view of dislocation cross-slip and the dislocation motion in continuum dislocation dynamics.

36 MATERIALS SCIENCE↗
DOE OSTI2022

Single Gaussian process method for arbitrary tokamak regimes with a statistical analysis

Abstract Gaussian process regression is a Bayesian method for inferring profiles based on input data. The technique is increasing in popularity in the fusion community due to its many advantages over traditional fitting techniques including intrinsic uncertainty quantification and robustness to over-fitting. This work investigates the use of a new method, the change-point method, for handling the varying length scales found in different tokamak regimes. The use of the Student’s t-distribution for the Bayesian likelihood probability is also investigated and shown to be advantageous in providing good fits in profiles with many outliers. To compare different methods, synthetic data generated from analytic profiles is used to create a database enabling a quantitative statistical comparison of which methods perform the best. Using a full Bayesian approach with the change-point method, Matérn kernel for the prior probability, and Student’s t-distribution for the likelihood is shown to give the best results.

70 PLASMA PHYSICS AND FUSION TECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2024

Avalanche statistics of fluctuation-induced fluxes from the SLPM and the W7-AS stellarator

Measurements of fluctuating floating potentials and ion saturation currents at different radial locations in the Santander Linear Plasma Machine (Castellanos et al 2005 Plasma Phys. Control. Fusion47 2067) and at the edge of the W7-AS stellarator by means of radially movable Langmuir probes allow to infer the corresponding fluctuation-induced radial flux temporal series. Avalanche-like transport events are identified in the time series and statistically characterized in terms of avalanche size/duration/quiet-time distributions and size-duration scaling relations. Transport is diffusive in the inner and intermediate radial region of the SLPM r < r tr ≈ 2.6 cm, undergoing a transition at r tr , becoming non-diffusive in the outermost region of the device, r > r tr . Here, the results obtained at the edge of the W7-AS stellarator are similar to those found in SLPM for r > r tr , i.e. consistent with what would be expected for scale-free, self-similar plasma transport dynamics near a critical state.

Avalanches↗
DOE OSTI2017

Statistical analysis of the Nb 3 Sn strand production for the ITER toroidal field coils

The ITER toroidal field (TF) strand procurement initiated the largest Nb 3 Sn superconducting strand production hitherto. The industrial-scale production started in Japan in 2008 and finished in summer 2015. Six ITER partners (so-called Domestic Agencies, or DAs) are in charge of the procurement and involved eight different strand suppliers all over the world, of which four are using the bronze route (BR) process and four the internal-tin (IT) process. In total more than 500 tons have been produced including excess material covering losses during the conductor manufacturing process, in particular the cabling. The procurement is based on a functional specification where the main strand requirements like critical current, hysteresis losses, Cu ratio and residual resistance ratio are specified but not the strand production process or layout. We introduce the analysis on the data acquired during the quality control (QC) process that was carried out to ensure the same conductor performance requirements are met by the different strand suppliers regardless of strand design. The strand QC is based on 100% billet testing and on applying statistical process control (SPC) limits. Throughout the production, samples adjacent to the strand pieces tested by the suppliers are cross-checked ('verified') by their respective DAs reference labs. The level of verification was lowered from 100% at the beginning of the procurement progressively to approximately 25% during the final phase of production. Based on the complete dataset of the TF strand production, an analysis of the SPC limits of the critical strand parameters is made and the related process capability indices are calculated. In view of the large-scale production and costs, key manufacturing parameters such as billet yield, number of breakages and piece-length distribution are also discussed. Furthermore, the results are compared among all the strand suppliers, focusing on the difference between BR and IT processes. Following the completion of the largest Nb 3 Sn strand production, our experience gained from monitoring the execution of the QC activities and from auditing the results from the measurements is summarised for future superconducting strand material procurement activities.

Vostner, A.↗
DOE OSTI2017

The structure and statistics of interstellar turbulence

We explore the structure and statistics of multiphase, magnetized ISM turbulence in the local Milky Way by means of driven periodic box numerical MHD simulations. Using the higher order-accurate piecewise-parabolic method on a local stencil (PPML), we carry out a small parameter survey varying the mean magnetic field strength and density while fixing the rms velocity to observed values. We quantify numerous characteristics of the transient and steady-state turbulence, including its thermodynamics and phase structure, kinetic and magnetic energy power spectra, structure functions, and distribution functions of density, column density, pressure, and magnetic field strength. The simulations reproduce many observables of the local ISM, including molecular clouds, such as the ratio of turbulent to mean magnetic field at 100 pc scale, the mass and volume fractions of thermally stable Hi, the lognormal distribution of column densities, the mass-weighted distribution of thermal pressure, and the linewidth-size relationship for molecular clouds. Our models predict the shape of magnetic field probability density functions (PDFs), which are strongly non-Gaussian, and the relative alignment of magnetic field and density structures. Finally, our models show how the observed low rates of star formation per free-fall time are controlled by the multiphase thermodynamics and large-scale turbulence.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗