Ionization processes in the heliosphere — Rates and methods of their determination

The rates of the most important ionization processes acting in interplanetary space on interstellar H, He, C, O, Ne and Ar atoms are critically reviewed in the paper. Their long-term modulations in the period 1974 – 1994 are reexamined using updated information on relevant cross-sections as well as direct or indirect data on variations of the solar wind/solar EUV fluxes based on IMP 8 measurements and monitoring of the solar 10.7 cm radio emission. It is shown that solar cycle related variations are pronounced (factor of 3 between maximum and minimum) especially for species such as He, Ne, C for which photoionization is the dominant loss process. Species sensitive primarily to the charge-exchange (as H) show only moderate fluctuations 20% around average. It is also demonstrated that new techniques that make use of simultaneous observations of neutral He atoms on direct and indirect orbits, or simultaneous measurements of He⁺ and He⁺⁺ pickup ions and solar wind particles can be useful tools for narrowing the uncertainties of the He photoionization rate caused by insufficient knowledge of the solar EUV flux and its variations.     

Moment equation description of interstellar hydrogen

The flow of interstellar hydrogen in the heliosphere can be studied using the moment equation approach. The Boltzmann equation is integrated over the velocity space to obtain the moment equations, the moment equations are then solved directly for the flow conditions. We present a closed system of moment equations. This approach can include anisotropic pressure when the distribution function is distorted into skewed ellipsoid.     

Galileo Probe Nephelometer experiment

The objective of the Nephelometer Experient aboard the Probe of the Galileo mission is to explore the vertical structure and microphysical properties of the clouds and hazes in the atmosphere of Jupiter along the descent trajectory of the Probe (nominally from 0.1 to > 10 bars). The measurements, to be obtained at least every kilometer of the Probe descent, will provide the bases for inferences of mean particle sizes, particle number densities (and hence, opacities, mass densities, and columnar mass loading) and, for non-highly absorbing particles, for distinguishing between solid and liquid particles. These quantities, especially the location of the cloud bases, together with other quantities derived from this and other experiments aboard the Probe, will not only yield strong evidence for the composition of the particles, but, using thermochemical models, for species abundances as well. The measurements in the upper troposphere will provide ground truth data for correlation with remote sensing instruments aboard the Galileo Orbiter vehicle. The instrument is carefully designed and calibrated to measure the light scattering properties of the particulate clouds and hazes at scattering angles of 5.8°, 16°, 40°, 70°, and 178°. The measurement sensitivity and accuracy is such that useful estimates of mean particle radii in the range from about 0.2 to 20 can be inferred. The instrument will detect the presence of typical cloud particles with radii of about 1.0 , or larger, at concentrations of less than 1 cm³.Deceased.     

CFAR data fusion center with inhomogeneous receivers

Detection systems with distributed sensors and data fusion are increasingly used by surveillance systems. A system formed by N inhomogeneous constant false alarm rate (CFAR) detectors (cell-averaging (CA) and ordered statistic (OS) CFAR detectors) is studied. A recursive formulation of an algorithm that permits a fixed level of false alarms in the data fusion center is presented, to set the optimum individual threshold levels in the CFAR receivers and the optimum `K out of N' decision rule in order to maximize the total probability of detection. The algorithm also considers receivers of different quality or with different communication channel qualities connecting them with the fusion center. This procedure has been applied to several hypothetical networks with distributed CA-CFAR and OS-CFAR receivers and for Rayleigh targets and interference, and it was seen that in general the fusion decision OR rule is not always the best     

Optimal speckle reduction in polarimetric SAR imagery

Speckle is a major cause of degradation in synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery. With the availability of fully polarimetric SAR data, it is possible to use the three complex elements (HH, HV, VV) of the polarimetric scattering matrix to reduce speckle. The optimal method for combining the elements of the scattering matrix to minimize image speckle is derived, and the solution is shown to be a polarimetric whitening filter (PWF). A simulation of spatially correlated, K-distributed, fully polarimetric clutter is then used to compare the PWF with other, suboptimal speckle-reduction methods. Target detection performance of the PWF, span, and single-channel |HH|² detectors is compared with that of the optimal polarimetric detector (OPD). A novel, constant-false-alarm-rate (CFAR) detector (the adaptive PWF) is as a simple alternative to the OPD for detecting targets in clutter. This algorithm estimates the polarization covariance of the clutter, uses the covariance to construct the minimum-speckle image, and then tests for the presence of a target. An exact theoretical analysis of the adaptive PWF is presented; the algorithm is shown to have detection performance comparable with that of the OPD     

Automated air defense system using knowledge-based system

The proposed KAAD (knowledge-based automated air defense) system demonstrates a man-machine environment for airspace defense systems. When the unknown aircraft is hostile, a threat rating and response methods are generated by the system. It serves as a double-check decision-making system for a war control center. In addition to this application, the KAAD system can also be a useful tool as a training program for the war controller. The capabilities of the system are limited due to the shortage of knowledge resources. It requires communications among war controllers and air fighter pilots to organize a practical knowledge base. It is shown that the KAAD system can be combined with an automated ATC (air traffic control) system to become a practical system for air defense applications     

Jets and brightenings generated by energy deposition in the middle and upper solar chromosphere

Numerical simulations of energy depositions in the middle and upper solar chromosphere result in ejection of chromospheric material into the corona and heating of the chromospheric gas. These simulations may be capable of describing some of the features seen by the soft X-ray telescope on board theYohkoh satellite.     

IMF connection for energetic protons observed at Ulysses via mid-latitude solar wind rarefaction regions

As Ulysses moved inward and southward from mid-1992 to early 1994 we noticed the occasional occurrence of inter-events, lasting about 10 days and falling between the recurrent events, observed at proton energies of 0.48–97 MeV, associated with Corotating Interaction Regions (CIR). These inter-events were present for several sequences of two or more solar rotations at intensity levels around 1% of those of the neighbouring main events. When we compared the Ulysses events with those measured on IMP-8 at 1 AU we saw that the inter-events appeared at Ulysses after the extended emission (>10 days) of large fluxes of solar protons of the same energy that lasted at least one solar rotation at 1 AU. The inter-events fell completely within the rarefaction regions (dv/dt<0) of the recurrent solar wind streams. The interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) lines in the rarefactions map back to the narrow range of longitudes at the Sun which mark the eastern edge of the source region of the high speed stream. Thus the inter-events are propagating at mid-latitudes to Ulysses along field lines free from stream-stream interactions. They are seen in the 0.39–1.28 MeV/nucleon He, which exhibit a faster decay, but almost never in the 38–53 keV electrons. We show that the inter-events are unlikely to be accelerated by reverse shocks associated with the CIRs and that they are more likely to be accelerated by sequences of solar events and transported along the IMF in the rarefactions of the solar wind streams.     

Ulysses observations of a coronal origin particle event at 32° south heliographic latitutde

A remarkable streaming beam-like particle event of 60 keV-5 MeV ions and of 38–315 keV electrons has been reported previously. This event has been associated with the passage of a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) over the Ulysses spacecraft on June 9–13, 1993. At this time, the spacecraft was located at 4.6 AU from the sun and at an heliolatitude of 32° south. It was proposed (Armstrong et al., 1994) that the particle injection source could have been of coronal origin. In this study, we analyse the solar activity during this period. We identify a region of solar radio noise storms in the corona and in particular, a flare on June 7 that presents all the required characteristics to produce the hot plasma beam observed in the interplanetary medium.