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.     

Data Grids and High Energy Physics: A Melbourne Perspective

The University of Melbourne, Experimental Particle Physics group recognises that the future of computing is an important issue for the scientific community. It is in the nature of research for the questions posed to become more complex, requiring larger computing resources for each generation of experiment. As institutes and universities around the world increasingly pool their resources and work together to solve these questions, the need arises for more sophisticated computing techniques. One such technique, grid computing, is under investigation by many institutes across many disciplines and is the focus of much development in the computing community. ‘The Grid’, as it is commonly named, is heralded as the future of computing for research, education, and industry alike. This paper will introduce the basic concepts of grid technologies including the Globus toolkit and data grids as of July 2002. It will highlight the challenges faced in developing appropriate resource brokers and schedulers, and will look at the future of grids within high energy physics. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The case for massive,evolving winds in black hole X-ray binaries

In the last decade, high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy has revolutionized our understanding of the role of accretion disk winds in black hole X-ray binaries. Here I present a brief review of the state of wind studies in black hole X-ray binaries, focusing on recent arguments that disk winds are not only extremely massive, but also highly variable. I show how new and archival observations at high timing and spectral resolution continue to highlight the intricate links between the inner accretion flow, relativistic jets, and accretion disk winds. Finally, I discuss methods to infer the driving mechanisms of observed disk winds and their implications for connections between mass accretion and ejection processes.     

Testing Modified Newtonian Dynamics with LISA Pathfinder

We suggest that LISA Pathfinder, a technology demonstrator for the future gravitational wave observatory LISA, could be used to carry out a direct experimental test of Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND). The LISA Pathfinder spacecraft is currently being built and the launch date is just a few years away. No modifications of the spacecraft are required, nor any interference with its nominal mission. The basic concept is to fly LISA Pathfinder through the region around the Sun-Earth saddle point, in an extended mission phase, once the original mission goals are achieved. We examine various strategies to reach the saddle point, and find that the preferred strategy, yielding relatively short transfer times of just over 1 year, probably involves a lunar fly-by. LISA Pathfinder will be able to probe the intermediate MOND regime, i.e. the transition between deep MOND and Newtonian gravity. We present robust estimates of the anomalous gravity gradients that LISA Pathfinder should be exposed to, based on MONDian effects as derived from the Tensor-Vector-Scalar (TeVeS) theory. The spacecraft speed and spatial scale of the MOND signal combine in a way that the spectral signature of the signal falls precisely into LISA Pathfinder’s measurement bandwidth. We find that if the gravity gradiometer on-board the spacecraft achieves its currently predicted sensitivity, these anomalous gradients could not just be detected, but measured in some detail.     

Dark Matter searches with GLAST

The Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST), scheduled to be launched in fall 2007, is the next generation satellite for high-energy gamma-ray astronomy. The Large Area Telescope (LAT), GLAST main instrument, with a wide field of view (>2 sr), a large effective area (>8000 cm² at 1 GeV) and 20 MeV–300 GeV energy range, will provide excellent high energy gamma-ray observations for Dark Matter searches. In this paper we examine the potential of the LAT to detect gamma-rays coming from WIMPS annihilation in the context of supersymmetry. As an example, two search regions are investigated: the galactic center and the galactic satellites.     

Determination of K,Ar, Cl,S, Si and Al flare abundances from RESIK soft X-ray spectra

The RESIK is a high sensitivity, uncollimated bent crystal spectrometer which successfully operated aboard Russian CORONAS-F solar mission between 2001 and 2003. It measured for the first time in a systematic way solar soft X-ray spectra in the four wavelength channels from 3.3 Å to 6.1 Å. This range includes characteristic strong lines of H- and He-like ions of K, Ar, Cl, Si, S and Al in the respective spectral channels. A distinguishing feature of RESIK is its possibility of making reliable measurements of the continuum radiation in flares. Interpretation of line and the continuum intensities observed in vicinity of respective strong lines provides diagnostics of plasma temperature and absolute abundances of K, Ar, Cl, S, Si and Al in several flares. We analyzed the observed intensities of spectral lines and the nearby continuum using the CHIANTI v5.2 atomic data package. A specific, so-called “locally isothermal” approach has been used in this respect allowing us to make not only flare-averaged abundance estimates, but also to look into a possible variability of plasma composition during the course of flares.     

Space-radiation-induced photon luminescence of the Moon

We report on the results of a continuing study of the photon luminescence of the Moon induced by Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) and space radiation from the Sun, using the Monte Carlo program FLUKA. Understanding the space radiation environment is critical to future exploration of the Moon, and this includes photons. The model of the lunar surface is taken to be the chemical composition of soils found at various landing sites during the Apollo and Luna programs, averaged over all such sites to define a generic regolith for the present analysis. This surface model then becomes the target that is bombarded by Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCRs) and Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs) or Solar Particle Events (SPEs) above 1 keV in FLUKA to determine the photon fluence albedo produced by the Moon’s surface when there is no sunlight and Earthshine. The result is to be distinguished from the gamma-ray spectrum produced by the radioactive decay of radiogenic constituents lying in the surface and interior of the Moon. From the photon fluence we derive the spectrum which can be utilized to examine existing lunar spectral data and to aid future orbiting instrumentation in the measurement of various components of the space-radiation-induced photon luminescence present on the Moon.     

微重力效应的物理解释及其应用

讨论了微重力效应及其分子物理学解释，万有引力的单极性决定了它的累积性和宏观性，重力对自由分子的影响是微科其微的，然而在流钵，特别是在液体内部的具体条件下，重力对流体内部分子集团产生明显影响，以宏观的静压强形式表现出来。而当重力变小，变微，流体内部的静压强也就趋于消失，由静压强产生的二级现象，如异相沉降或浮泛。同相的浮泛对流，液体自约束成球形，也就消失，这些就是微重力的一，二级物理效应，本文认为，Bossinesq近似对于流体而言实质上是线性热力学假设或近平衡态假设，可以用初始平衡态的物性参量表征临界点时的无量纳数，提出一种重力消失诱发非平衡态向平衡态蜕变的猜想，从文中导出的瑞利数Rα的表达式可以看出，重力加速度的消失，可以使瑞利数的值从远离平衡态的湍流蜕变到稳定流动的瑞利－贝纳对流胞，甚至是没有宏观流动的平衡态，最后，将本文给出的理论解释模型应用到空间材料加工所需微重力水平的估算、窨材料加工工艺的微重力利用准则和空间装置中气体自然对流传热状态模拟的低真空和微重力的互换性方面。