An Introduction to the Pre-CME Corona

Coronal mass ejections provide a gateway to understanding the physics of energy release and conversion in the solar corona. While it is generally accepted that the energy required to power a CME is contained in the pre-eruption coronal magnetic field, the pre-CME state of that field and the conditions leading up to the release of the magnetic energy are still not entirely clear. Recent studies point to various phenomena which are common to many, if not all, CME events, suggesting that there may be identifiable characteristics of the pre-CME corona which signal the impending eruption. However, determining whether these phenomena are necessary or even sufficient has yet to be achieved. In this paper we attempt to summarize the state of the solar corona and its evolution in the build up to a CME.     

The Sun in Time

The Sun varies in time over at least twenty orders of magnitude. In this highly selective look at a vast subject, the focus is on solar variations related to the magnetic field structure of the heliosphere since these changes affect the propagation of cosmic rays in the heliosphere. The root of the changes is the magnetic field pattern near the solar surface. Some key aspects of the behavior of this pattern are reviewed. Recent solar activity has been unlike any experienced in living memory and several of the observed oddities are noted. Included here is a first attempt to directly compare three decades of magnetic field measurements in coronal holes with the heliospheric magnetic field at 1 AU. Results support the idea that nearly all the open magnetic flux from the Sun originates in coronal holes (including those close to active regions).     

Dust Near The Sun

We review the current knowledge and understanding of dust in the inner solar system. The major sources of the dust population in the inner solar system are comets and asteroids, but the relative contributions of these sources are not quantified. The production processes inward from 1 AU are: Poynting-Robertson deceleration of particles outside of 1 AU, fragmentation into dust due to particle-particle collisions, and direct dust production from comets. The loss processes are: dust collisional fragmentation, sublimation, radiation pressure acceleration, sputtering, and rotational bursting. These loss processes as well as dust surface processes release dust compounds in the ambient interplanetary medium. Between 1 and 0.1 AU the dust number densities and fluxes can be described by inward extrapolation of 1 AU measurements, assuming radial dependences that describe particles in close to circular orbits. Observations have confirmed the general accuracy of these assumptions for regions within 30° latitude of the ecliptic plane. The dust densities are considerably lower above the solar poles but Lorentz forces can lift particles of sizes < 5 μm to high latitudes and produce a random distribution of small grains that varies with the solar magnetic field. Also long-period comets are a source of out-of-ecliptic particles. Under present conditions no prominent dust ring exists near the Sun. We discuss the recent observations of sungrazing comets. Future in-situ experiments should measure the complex dynamics of small dust particles, identify the contribution of cometary dust to the inner-solar-system dust cloud, and determine dust interactions in the ambient interplanetary medium. The combination of in-situ dust measurements with particle and field measurements is recommended.     

The Magnetic Sun: Reversals and Long-Term Variations

A didactic introduction to current thinking on some aspects of the solar dynamo is given for geophysicists and planetary scientists.     

The Local Bubble and Interstellar Material Near the Sun

The properties of interstellar matter at the Sun are regulated by our location with respect to a void in the local matter distribution, known as the Local Bubble. The Local Bubble (LB) is bounded by associations of massive stars and fossil supernovae that have disrupted dense interstellar matter (ISM), driving low density intermediate velocity ISM into the void. The Sun appears to be located in one of these flows of low density material. This nearby interstellar matter, dubbed the Local Fluff, has a bulk velocity of ∼19 km s⁻¹ in the local standard of rest. The flow is coming from the direction of the gas and dust ring formed where the Loop I supernova remnant merges into the LB. Optical polarization data suggest that the local interstellar magnetic field lines are draped over the heliosphere. A longstanding discrepancy between the high thermal pressure of plasma filling the LB and low thermal pressures in the embedded Local Fluff cloudlets is partially mitigated when the ram pressure component parallel to the cloudlet flow direction is included.     

Sun高性能计算机推动航空创新

作为IT业界的引领者,Sun公司一直秉承以技术创新带动市场变革的理念,通过创新性的高性能计算机(HPC)产品带动行业发展。无论是从应用的性能、运营的效率、开放性和可升级性还是配置、     

孙过庭书法艺术述评

中国书法在隋唐时期得到了长足的发展,这一时期涌现出了许多备受后人推崇的书法名家.孙过庭在书法创作方面做到了理论与实践并重,因此在唐代的众多书法家中,他可以说是极具特色的一位人物.通过分析和研究孙过庭的草书作品及其书法理论论著<书谱>,探寻孙过庭在书法创作和研究中的艺术特色.     

The Galactic Environment of the Sun: Interstellar Material Inside and Outside of the Heliosphere

Interstellar material (ISMa) is observed both inside and outside of the heliosphere. Relating these diverse sets of ISMa data provides a richer understanding of both the interstellar medium and the heliosphere. The galactic environment of the Sun is dominated by warm, low-density, partially ionized interstellar material consisting of atoms and dust grains. The properties of the heliosphere are dependent on the pressure, composition, radiation field, ionization, and magnetic field of ambient ISMa. The very low-density interior of the Local Bubble, combined with an expanding superbubble shell associated with star formation in the Scorpius-Centaurus Association, dominate the properties of the local interstellar medium (LISM). Once the heliosphere boundaries and interaction mechanisms are understood, interstellar gas, dust, pickup ions, and anomalous cosmic rays inside of the heliosphere can be directly compared to ISMa outside of the heliosphere. Our understanding of ISMa at the Sun is further enriched when the circumheliospheric interstellar material is compared to observations of other nearby ISMa and the overall context of our galactic environment. The IBEX mission will map the interaction region between the heliosphere and ISMa, and improve the accuracy of comparisons between ISMa inside and outside the heliosphere.     

Sun and Protosolar Nebula - Working Group Report

Volatile isotope abundances are tracers for the evolutionary processes of the solar system. At the same time they carry information on the galactic nucleosynthetic sources, from which solar matter originates. This working group report summarizes the present knowledge and addresses unresolved issues regarding fractionation of isotopes of volatile elements in the solar system. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Gamma ray and neutron emissions from the Sun

Evidence for acceleration of charged particles in the solar atmosphere is reviewed with specific reference to production of gamma rays and neutrons at the Sun. Fluxes of these components at the Earth, based on theoretical assumptions are also reviewed and estimates and conditions for obtaining observable fluxes from Syrovatskii's dynamic dissipation model are considered. Knowledge about the Sun, to be derived from such observations, is discussed. Finally, a brief review of the present status of experimental observations and suggestions for new experimental approaches are given. Work performed while author was a guest of the Max-Planck-Institute for Physics and Astrophysics, München, on sabbatical leave from the University of New Hampshire, Durham, New Hampshire, U.S.A. Partially supported by a NATO Senior Fellowship in Science.     

Theory of fragmented energy release in the Sun

The magnetic energy released inside an active region is closely related to its formation and evolution. Following the evolution of a collection of flux tubes inside the convection zone and above the photosphere we can show that many nonlinear structures (current sheets, shock waves, double layers etc.) are formed. We propose in this review that coronal heating, flares and particle acceleration are due to the interaction of the plasma with these nonlinear structures. Approaching active regions as a driven complex dynamical system we can show that several coherent ensembles of the nonlinear structures will appear spontaneously. The statistical analysis of these structures is a major problem in solar physics. We can also show that many observed large scale structures are the result of the convolution of non-observable fragmentation in the energy release process.     

孙中山晚年复归儒学原因初探

孙中山晚年复归儒学，根源于其坚定的民族立场，对西方“文明”的反省，以及建设革命党和从事政党政治的需要。     

Heliospheric Physics: Linking the Sun to the Magnetosphere

Research into the heliospheric structure and its relation to the solar boundary is at an impasse. After successful predictions by Parker about the zeroth-order behavior of the heliospheric magnetic field and the solar wind, the heliospheric community struggles to make substantive progress toward a predictive model describing the connections between the Sun and its space environment, between the closed corona and the open corona extending to the planets. This is caused by our lack of understanding of the basic processes heating the corona and transporting open magnetic field. We detail the models used to describe this connectivity, from potential field source surface models to full MHD techniques. We discuss the current limitations of both approaches. Finally, we address a recent attempt to advance our understanding beyond these limitations. At this point in time the proposed theory remains controversial in the community, but it addresses important shortcomings of current approaches outlined above.     

高空气球太阳能电池标定用太阳跟踪控制技术

高空气球标定的太阳能电池是可被用于地面太阳模拟器和太阳光光强检测的标准电池。首先,给出了由飞行气球搭载的高空太阳能电池标定所使用的太阳跟踪控制系统设计方法,包括基于STM32的太阳跟踪控制系统硬件设计方案、混合自动追踪控制策略、软件开发与实现方法、高空跟踪控制技术问题解决方案以及高空标定试验等。同时,解决了高空气球电池标定用太阳跟踪控制系统在极端环境下高可靠性、连续追踪和防抖动等关键技术问题。试验结果为气球飞行高度32km,平飘时间超过2h,太阳跟踪偏差小于1°。经初步分析,高空太阳跟踪控制系统标定测试结果合理可靠,工作性能稳定,为中国高空气球太阳能电池AM0标定用太阳跟踪控制系统的研究提供了新思路。     

四大创新技术彰显不同Sun让X86服务器更强大

2009年5月7日,面向中国市场,Sun公司全面推出了基于英特尔至强5500处理器的开放式网络服务器产品线,它以强大的性能优势和冷却功能,帮助客户提高了服务器的性能和可扩展性,并全面降低了成本.     

High-energy phenomena on the Sun: An introductory review

Large solar flares are often accompanied by both emissions of high-energy quanta and particles. The emissions such as gamma-ray and hard X-ray photons are generated due to the interaction of high-energy nuclei and electrons with gases ambient in the flare regions and the solar atmosphere. Nonthermal radio emissions of wide frequency band are produced from energetic electrons while being decelerated by the action of plasmas and magnetic fields ambient in the flare site and its neighboring region. To understand the emission mechanism of these high-energy quanta on the Sun, it is, therefore, necessary to find the acceleration mechanism for both nuclei and electrons, which begins almost simultaneously with the onset of solar flares.A part of the accelerated nuclei and electrons are later released from the solar atmosphere into the outer space and eventually lost from the space of the solar system. Their behavior in the interplanetary space is considered to study the large-scale structure of plasmas and magnetic fields in this space.The observations and studies of high-energy phenomena on the Sun are thus thought of as giving some crucial hint important to understand the nature of various high-energy phenomena being currently observed in the Universe.     

Particle acceleration at the Sun and in the heliosphere

Energetic particles are accelerated in rich profusion at sites throughout the heliosphere. They come from solar flares in the low corona, from shock waves driven outward by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), from planetary magnetospheres and bow shocks. They come from corotating interaction regions (CIRs) produced by high-speed streams in the solar wind, and from the heliospheric termination shock at the outer edge of the heliospheric cavity. We sample many populations near Earth, but can distinguish them readily by their element and isotope abundances, ionization states, energy spectra, angular distributions and time behavior. Remote spacecraft have probed the spatial distributions of the particles and examined new sources in situ. Most acceleration sources can be ‘seen’ only by direct observation of the particles; few photons are produced at these sites. Wave-particle interactions are an essential feature in acceleration sources and, for shock acceleration, new evidence of energetic-proton-generated waves has come from abundance variations and from local cross-field scattering. Element abundances often tell us the physics of the source plasma itself, prior to acceleration. By comparing different populations, we learn more about the sources, and about the physics of acceleration and transport, than we can possibly learn from one source alone. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI)

The Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) is a five telescope package, which has been developed for the Solar Terrestrial Relation Observatory (STEREO) mission by the Naval Research Laboratory (USA), the Lockheed Solar and Astrophysics Laboratory (USA), the Goddard Space Flight Center (USA), the University of Birmingham (UK), the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (UK), the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (Germany), the Centre Spatiale de Leige (Belgium), the Institut d’Optique (France) and the Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale (France). SECCHI comprises five telescopes, which together image the solar corona from the solar disk to beyond 1 AU. These telescopes are: an extreme ultraviolet imager (EUVI: 1–1.7 R_⊙), two traditional Lyot coronagraphs (COR1: 1.5–4 R_⊙ and COR2: 2.5–15 R_⊙) and two new designs of heliospheric imagers (HI-1: 15–84 R_⊙ and HI-2: 66–318 R_⊙). All the instruments use 2048×2048 pixel CCD arrays in a backside-in mode. The EUVI backside surface has been specially processed for EUV sensitivity, while the others have an anti-reflection coating applied. A multi-tasking operating system, running on a PowerPC CPU, receives commands from the spacecraft, controls the instrument operations, acquires the images and compresses them for downlink through the main science channel (at compression factors typically up to 20×) and also through a low bandwidth channel to be used for space weather forecasting (at compression factors up to 200×). An image compression factor of about 10× enable the collection of images at the rate of about one every 2–3 minutes. Identical instruments, except for different sizes of occulters, are included on the STEREO-A and STEREO-B spacecraft.     

用太阳源法测量遥测系统的品质因数G/T

阐述利用太阳源法测量遥测系统品质因数G/T的原理,提出可用于工程实际的实现方法,重点对太阳流量密度、K1因子、K2因子等参数进行分析,给出工程应用计算方法.最后,以某遥测系统为例,给出了采用太阳源法和信标塔法的测量值,并对测试结果进行比对分析.实测结果分析表明,太阳源法测得的G/T重复测试精度小于0.4 dB,与信标塔法测试结果相差小于0.6 dB.因此,太阳源法合理可行,可广泛应用于遥测系统指标测试.