On mid-term periodicities of high-latitude solar activity

The mid-term periodicities of polar faculae are studied separately for the total disk, northern and southern hemispheres of the Sun for a time interval from 1951 August to 1998 December. Apart from the 11-year Schwabe cycle which is the fundamental period and is found in all of the three time series, the following prominent results are found: (1) the rotational periodicity of solar activity at high latitudes is approximately from 28 to 32 days; (2) a large number of quasi-periods appearing in low-latitude solar activity (annual variation, 1.3–1.7 years, quasi-biennial oscillation, and 4–5 years) also exist in polar faculae; (3) the periodicities on both hemispheres are not identical.     

Synoptic magnetic field in cycle 23 and in the beginning of the cycle 24

The SOHO/MDI data provide the uniform time series of the synoptic magnetic maps which cover the period of the cycle 23 and the beginning of the cycle 24. It is very interesting period because of the long and deep solar minimum between the cycles 23 and 24. Synoptic structure of the solar magnetic field shows variability during solar cycles. It is known that the magnetic activity contributes to the solar irradiance. The axisymmetrical distribution of the magnetic flux (Fig. 3c) is closely associated with the ‘butterfly’ diagram in the EUV emission (Benevolenskaya et al., 2001). And, also, the magnetic field (B_∥) shows the non-uniform distributions of the solar activity with longitude, so-called ‘active zones’, and ‘coronal holes’ in the mid-latitude. Polar coronal holes are forming after the solar maxima and they persist during the solar minima. SOHO/EIT data in the emission of Fe XII (195 Å) could be a proxy for the coronal holes tracking. The active longitudinal zones or active longitude exist due to the reappearance of the activity and it is clearly seen in the synoptic structure of the solar cycle. On the descending branch of the solar cycle 23 active zones are less pronounced comparing with previous cycles 20, 21 and 22. Moreover, the weak polar magnetic field precedes the long and deep solar minimum. In this paper we have discussed the development of solar cycles 23 and 24 in details.     

Model of a fluxtube with a twisted magnetic field in the stratified solar atmosphere

We build a single vertical straight magnetic fluxtube spanning the solar photosphere and the transition region which does not expand with height. We assume that the fluxtube containing twisted magnetic fields is in magnetohydrostatic equilibrium within a realistic stratified atmosphere subject to solar gravity. Incorporating specific forms of current density and gas pressure in the Grad–Shafranov equation, we solve the magnetic flux function, and find it to be separable with a Coulomb wave function in radial direction while the vertical part of the solution decreases exponentially. We employ improved fluxtube boundary conditions and take a realistic ambient external pressure for the photosphere to transition region, to derive a family of solutions for reasonable values of the fluxtube radius and magnetic field strength at the base of the axis that are the free parameters in our model. We find that our model estimates are consistent with the magnetic field strength and the radii of Magnetic bright points (MBPs) as estimated from observations. We also derive thermodynamic quantities inside the fluxtube.     

Recent advancements in the EST project

The European Solar Telescope (EST) is a project of a new-generation solar telescope. It has a large aperture of 4?m, which is necessary for achieving high spatial and temporal resolution. The high polarimetric sensitivity of the EST will allow to measure the magnetic field in the solar atmosphere with unprecedented precision. Here, we summarise the recent advancements in the realisation of the EST project regarding the hardware development and the refinement of the science requirements.     

Interstellar scintillation,ISS, and intrinsic variability of radio AGN

We investigate the relationship between the 5 GHz interstellar scintillation (ISS) and the 15 GHz intrinsic variability of the compact, radio-selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) common to the Microarcsecond Scintillation-Induced Variability (MASIV) Survey and the Owens Valley Radio Observatory blazar flux density monitoring program. As part of this investigation, we also re-examine the reported intrinsic nature of the February 1990 VLA observations of the blazar S5 0716+714. We are also examining the presence of IDV/ISS in the Owens Valley 15 GHz flux density monitoring data. We find a significant relationship between the Owens Valley 15 GHz modulation index and the MASIV modulation index. We also discuss the implications of these findings for RadioAstron.     

Interpretation of the SOHO/UVCS observations of two CME-driven shocks

We report on the analysis of two fast CME-driven shocks observed with the UltraViolet Coronagraph Spectrometer (UVCS) on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). The first event, detected on 2002 March 22 at 4.1 R_⊙ with the UVCS slit placed in correspondence with the flank of the expanding CME surface, represents the highest UV detection of a shock obtained so far with the UVCS instrument in the corona. The second one, detected on 2002 July 23 at 1.6 R_⊙ with the UVCS slit placed in correspondence with the front of the expanding CME surface, shows an anomalous deficiency of ion heating with respect to what observed in previous CME/shocks observed by UVCS, possibly reflecting the effect of different coronal plasma conditions over the solar cycle. From the two different sets of observations we derived an estimate for the shock compression ratio X, which turns out to be X = 2.4 ± 0.2 and X = 2.2 ± 0.1, respectively, for the first and second event. Comparison between the two events provides complementary perspectives on the dynamical evolution of CME-driven shocks.     

Composite profile of the Fe Kα spectral line emitted from a binary system of supermassive black holes

We used a model of a relativistic accretion disk around a supermassive black hole (SMBH), based on ray-tracing method in the Kerr metric, to study the variations of the composite Fe Kα line emitted from two accretion disks around SMBHs in a binary system. We assumed that the orbit of such a binary is approximately Keplerian, and simulated the composite line shapes for different orbital elements, accretion disk parameters and mass ratios of the components. The obtained results show that, if observed in the spectra of some SMBH binaries during their different orbital phases, such composite Fe Kα line profiles could be used to constrain the orbits and several properties of such SMBH binaries.     

静基座捷联惯性组合加速度计高阶误差项显著性分析

在标定捷联惯组加速度计时,一般采用多位置试验,但是目前并未对多位置试验所能标定出的误差系数数量和标定结果的有效性进行分析,本文针对这一问题展开了研究.首先,阐述了带有高次误差项的捷联惯组加速度计误差模型.然后,针对一般6位置标定方法无法完成这一模型标定的缺陷,提出了一种18位置标定方法.进行标定后,运用显著性分析方法,对误差模型本身和其中的参数的有效性进行了分析.最后,通过重复进行去除最不显著项、再标定、显著性检验等步骤,获得了试验室条件下所能标定的捷联惯组加速度计组合误差模型.     

On developing data-driven turbulence model for DG solution of RANS

High-order Discontinuous Galerkin(DG) methods have been receiving more and more attentions in the area of Computational Fluid Dynamics(CFD) because of their high-accuracy property. However, it is still a challenge to obtain converged solution rapidly when solving the Reynolds Averaged Navier–Stokes(RANS) equations since the turbulence models significantly increase the nonlinearity of discretization system. The overall goal of this research is to develop an Artificial Neural Networks(ANNs) model with low complexity acting as an algebraic turbulence model to estimate the turbulence eddy viscosity for RANS. The ANN turbulence model is off-line trained using the training data generated by the widely used Spalart–Allmaras(SA) turbulence model before the Optimal Brain Surgeon(OBS) is employed to determine the relevancy of input features.Using the selected relevant features, a fully connected ANN model is constructed. The performance of the developed ANN model is numerically tested in the framework of DG for RANS, where the‘‘DG+ANN" method provides robust and steady convergence compared to the ‘‘DG+SA" method. The results demonstrate the promising potential to develop a general turbulence model based on artificial intelligence in the future given the training data covering a large rang of flow conditions.     

Improved orbital parameters of accreting millisecond pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658

We analyze the three outbursts of the X-ray millisecond pulsar SAX J1808.4-3658 that occurred in 1998, 2000, and 2002 observed with RXTE. With a technique based on epoch folding search we find an unique orbital solution valid over the five years of high temporal resolution data available. We revise the estimate of the orbital period, P_orb = 7249.1569(1) s and of its error, which we decrease by one order of magnitude. We also give the first constraint on the orbital period derivative, . We find that in 2002 the pulse profile shape is clearly asymmetric, showing a secondary peak at about 145° from the main pulse, which is different from the sinusoidal shape reported at the beginning of the 1998 outburst.