Ring Current Dynamics

This chapter reviews the current understanding of ring current dynamics. The terrestrial ring current is an electric current flowing toroidally around the Earth, centered at the equatorial plane and at altitudes of ∼10,000 to 60,000 km. Enhancements in this current are responsible for global decreases in the Earth’s surface magnetic field, which have been used to define geomagnetic storms. Intense geospace magnetic storms have severe effects on technological systems, such as disturbances or even permanent damage of telecommunication and navigation satellites, telecommunication cables, and power grids. The main carriers of the ring current are positive ions, with energies from ∼1 keV to a few hundred keV, which are trapped by the geomagnetic field and undergo an azimuthal drift. The ring current is formed by the injection of ions originating in the solar wind and the terrestrial ionosphere into the inner magnetosphere. The injection process involves electric fields, associated with enhanced magnetospheric convection and/or magnetospheric substorms. The quiescent ring current is carried mainly by protons of predominantly solar wind origin, while active processes in geospace tend to increase the abundance (both absolute and relative) of O⁺ ions, which are of ionospheric origin. During intense geospace magnetic storms, the O⁺ abundance increases dramatically. This increase has been observed to occur concurrently with the rapid intensification of the ring current in the storm main phase and to result in O⁺ dominance around storm maximum. This compositional change can affect several dynamic processes, such as species-and energy-dependent charge-exchange and wave-particle scattering loss.     

Space weather: its effects and predictability

Terrestrial technology is now, and increasingly, sensitive to space weather. Most space weather is caused by solar storms and the resulting changes to the Earth's radiation environment and the magnetosphere. The Sun as the driver of space weather is under intense observation but remains to be adequately modelled. Recent spacecraft measurements are greatly improving models of solar activity, the interaction of the solar wind with the magnetosphere, and models of the radiation belts. In-situ data updates the basic magnetospheric model to provide specific details of high-energy electron flux at satellite orbits. Shock wave effects at the magnetopause can also be coarsely predicted. However, the specific geomagnetic effects at ground level depend on the calculation of magnetic and electric fields and further improvements are needed. New work on physical models is showing promise of raising geomagnetic and ionospheric predictability above the synoptic climatological level. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Energy flux in the Earth's magnetosphere: Storm – substorm relationship

Three ways of the energy transfer in the Earth's magnetosphere are studied. The solar wind MHD generator is an unique energy source for all magnetospheric processes. Field-aligned currents directly transport the energy and momentum of the solar wind plasma to the Earth's ionosphere. The magnetospheric lobe and plasma sheet convection generated by the solar wind is another magnetospheric energy source. Plasma sheet particles and cold ionospheric polar wind ions are accelerated by convection electric field. After energetic particle precipitation into the upper atmosphere the solar wind energy is transferred into the ionosphere and atmosphere. This way of the energy transfer can include the tail lobe magnetic field energy storage connected with the increase of the tail current during the southward IMF. After that the magnetospheric substorm occurs. The model calculations of the magnetospheric energy give possibility to determine the ground state of the magnetosphere, and to calculate relative contributions of the tail current, ring current and field-aligned currents to the magnetospheric energy. The magnetospheric substorms and storms manifest that the permanent solar wind energy transfer ways are not enough for the covering of the solar wind energy input into the magnetosphere. Nonlinear explosive processes are necessary for the energy transmission into the ionosphere and atmosphere. For understanding a relation between substorm and storm it is necessary to take into account that they are the concurrent energy transferring ways. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Solar Energetic Particle Composition, Energy Spectra, and Space Weather

Recent progress in measuring the composition and energy spectra of solar energetic particles (SEPs) accelerated by CME-driven shocks is reviewed, including a comparison of the observed charge-to-mass dependence of breaks in SEP spectra with model predictions. Also discussed is a comparison of SEP and CME kinetic energies in seventeen large SEP events, and estimates of the SEP radiation dose that astronauts would be subject to once they venture outside the protective cover of Earth’s magnetosphere.     

Modelling of Solar Wind, CME Initiation and CME Propagation

Simulations of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) evolving in the interplanetary (IP) space from the Sun up to 1 AU are performed in the framework of ideal magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) by the means of a finite-volume, explicit solver. The aim is to quantify the effect of the background solar wind and of the CME initiation parameters, such as the initial magnetic polarity, on the evolution and on the geo-effectiveness of CMEs. First, three different solar wind models are reconstructed using the same numerical grid and the same numerical scheme. Then, different CME initiation models are considered: Magnetic foot point shearing and magnetic flux emergence. For the fast CME evolution studies, a very simple CME model is considered: A high-density and high-pressure magnetized plasma blob is superposed on a background steady state solar wind model with an initial velocity and launch direction. The simulations show that the initial magnetic polarity substantially affects the IP evolution of the CMEs influencing the propagation velocity, the shape, the trajectory (and thus, the geo-effectiveness).     

Real-Time Specifications of the Geospace Environment

We report the recent progress in our joint program of real-time mapping of ionospheric electric fields and currents and field-aligned currents through the Geospace Environment Data Analysis System (GEDAS) at the Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory and similar computer systems in the world. Data from individual ground magnetometers as well as from the solar wind are collected by these systems and are used as input for the KRM and AMIE magnetogram-inversion algorithms, which calculate the two-dimensional distribution of the ionospheric parameters. One of the goals of this program is to specify the solar-terrestrial environment in terms of ionospheric processes, providing the scientific community with more than what geomagnetic activity indices and statistical models provide. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Coronal Mass Ejections

This workshop summary tries to distill the key difficulties and questions in the art of (I)CME physics and strategies to address them. (I)CMEs are multi-dimensional, multi-parameter, and multi-scale phenomena related to the solar dynamo, corona, and heliosphere. This workshop illustrates the immense progress made in describing and modeling these spectacular energetic solar events, but also shows clear shortcomings in our understanding of them.     

Geoeffectivity of Coronal Mass Ejections

Coronal mass ejections and post-shock streams driven by them are the most efficient drivers of strong magnetospheric activity, magnetic storms. For this reason there is considerable interest in trying to make reliable forecasts for the effects of CMEs as much in advance as possible. To succeed this requires understanding of all aspects related to CMEs, starting from their emergence on the Sun to their propagation to the vicinity of the Earth and to effects within the magnetosphere. In this article we discuss some recent results on the geoeffectivity of different types of CME/shock structures. A particularly intriguing observation is that smoothly rotating magnetic fields within CMEs are most efficient in driving storm activity seen in the inner magnetosphere due to enhanced ring current, whereas the sheath regions between the shock and the ejecta tend to favour high-latitude activity.     

The Progress of the Taiwan Oscillation Network Project

We describe the present status of the project of the Taiwan Oscillation Network (TON) and discuss a scientific result using the TON data. The TON is a ground-based network to measure solar intensity oscillations for the study of the solar interior. Four telescopes have been installed in appropriate longitudes around the world. The TON telescopes take K-line full-disk solar images of diameter 1000 pixels at a rate of one image per minute. The data has been collected since October of 1993. The TON high-spatial-resolution data are specially suitable for the study of local properties of the Sun. In 1997 we developed a new method, acoustic imaging, to construct the acoustic signals inside the Sun with the acoustic signals measured at the solar surface. From the constructed signals, we can form intensity map and phase-shift map of an active region at various depths. The direct link between these maps and the subsurface wave-speed perturbation suffers from the poor vertical resolution of acoustic imaging. Recently an inversion method has been developed to invert the measured phase travel time perturbation to estimate the distribution of wave-speed perturbation based on the ray approximation. This technique of acoustic imaging has been used to image the far-side of the Sun that could provides information on space weather prediction. The TON Team includes: Antonio Jimenez (Instituto Astrofisica de Canarias, Spain); Guoxiang Ai and Honqi Zhang (Huairou Solar Observing Station, P.R.C.); Philip Goode and William Marquette (Big Bear Solar Observatory, U.S.A.); Shuhrat Ehgamberdiev and Oleg Ladenkov (Ulugh Beg Astronomical Institute, Uzbekistan) This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

重力姿轨耦合效应引起的太阳能电站轨道共振

以任意相控阵天线式空间太阳能电站为研究对象,主要研究了其在轨运行过程中受到的重力姿轨耦合效应对其轨道运动的影响。首先,通过Hamilton原理建立起考虑重力姿轨耦合效应时的姿态运动和轨道运动的方程。其中,任意相控阵天线式空间太阳能电站被简化成刚体,它的重力势能以其结构尺寸和其轨道半径的比值为小量进行泰勒展开,并保留至二阶项。之后,采用解析的方法对方程进行分析,并发现当电站的姿态运动满足一定条件时,其轨道运动将会出现共振现象。此外,重力姿轨耦合效应还会引起空间太阳能电站轨道运动长期的漂移,通过选择合适的轨道运动初始条件可以消除漂移;而且,在一定条件下,重力姿轨耦合效应还会引起轨道运动的发散。最后,数值仿真结果验证了分析的正确性。     

基于磁极电流分配的电磁轴承控制器设计

 电磁轴承是机、电、磁一体化的复杂系统, 针对不对称、强耦合电磁轴承结构, 提出基于磁极电流分配的电磁轴承控制器设计。该方法将原来控制器分为反馈控制器和电流分配器两部分, 以简化控制器设计。主要讨论了轴承磁极电流分配器设计, 并应用于圆锥电磁轴承系统中, 设计它的磁极电流分配器。     

Variations of the magnetic fields in large solar flares

We present preliminary results from high resolution observations obtained with the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) instrument on the SOHO of two large solar flares of 14 July 2000 and 24 November 2000. We show that rapid variations of the line-of-sight magnetic field occured on a time scale of a few minutes during the flare explosions. The reversibility/irreversibility of the magnetic field of both active regions is a very good tool for understanding how the magnetic energy is released in these flares. The observed sharp increase of the magnetic energy density at the time of maximum of the solar flare could involve an unknown component which deposited supplementary energy into the system. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The Strength and Structure of the Coronal Magnetic Field

I discuss a method for determining the strength and spatial structure of the coronal magnetic field by observations of the Faraday rotation of a radio galaxy which is in conjunction with the Sun. Given a knowledge of the plasma density in the outer corona, and the magnetic field sector structure (both independently available), the strength of the coronal field can be determined, as well as the magnitude of spatial variations on scales of 1000 km to several solar radii. Such knowledge is crucial for testing computational models of the solar corona, which are prominently featured in this meeting. Results are presented from observations with the Very Large Array radio telescope of the radio galaxy 3C228 on August 16, 2003, when the line of sight to the source was at heliocentic distances of 7.1−6.2R _⊙. The observations are consistent with a coronal magnetic field which is proportional to the inverse square of the distance in the range 6 ≤ r ≤ 10R _⊙, and has a value of 39 mG at 6.2R _⊙. The Faraday rotation is uniform across the source, indicating an absence of strong plasma inhomogeneity on spatial scales up to 35,000 km.     

Plasma Properties in Coronal Funnels

A two dimensional model of the transition region and the lower corona, based on the idea that the magnetic flux is strongly concentrated at the boundaries of the supergranular convection cells, has been proposed by Gabriel in 1976. The plasma moves along the open magnetic field lines, which define the the so-called "funnel," and eventually builds up the solar wind. Based on a two dimensional funnel model we investigate the stationary plasma flow at its central line, taking heat conduction, radiative losses, and a heating function into account. The derived height profiles of the plasma properties within the funnel are presented. This revised version was published online in June 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Radio Diagnostics of the Solar Flare Reconnection

First, high-frequency (HF) slowly drifting pulsating structures are interpreted as radio emissions of electron beams accelerated in the magnetic reconnection volume and injected into magnetic islands (plasmoids). Then, the time evolution of plasma parameters (density, magnetic field, etc.) in a 2-D MHD model of solar flare reconnection is computed numerically. Assuming plasma radio emission from locations where the “double-resonance’’ instability generates upper-hybrid (UH) waves due to unstable distribution function of suprathermal electrons, the radio spectra and spatial source structures in the reconnection region are modeled. By comparison of the modeled and observed spectra a remarkable similarity has been found between the computed narrow-band emission and the observed lace bursts. Finally, a new diagnostics of the reconnection process is proposed.     

磁空间群PC 63/mmc的C-G系数计算

在晶体拉曼散射的张量计算中，晶体磁空间群的C-G系数具有重要的作用。利用本征函数法计算了Pc63／mmc磁空间群第一布里渊区中的对称点A之间的C-G系数。