HeI dark points and 11-year solar cycle

TV observations of the full disk number of HeI dark points show that it varies nearly in antiphase with the sunspot number. This confirms the result of K.Harvey (1985). The number of HeI dark points ranged from 120 to 500.     

Constraints on dark matter in the solar system

We have searched for and estimated the possible gravitational influence of dark matter in the Solar system based on the EPM2011 planetary ephemerides using about 677 thousand positional observations of planets and spacecraft. Most of the observations belong to present-day ranging measurements. Our estimates of the dark matter density and mass at various distances from the Sun are generally overridden by their errors (σ). This suggests that the density of dark matter ρ _dm, if present, is very low and is much less than the currently achieved error of these parameters. We have found that ρ _dm is less than 1.1 × 10^?20 g cm^?3 at the orbital distance of Saturn, ρ _dm < 1.4 × 10^?20 g cm^?3 at the orbital distance of Mars, and ρ _dm < 1.4 × 10^?19 g cm^?3 at the orbital distance of the Earth. We also have considered the case of a possible concentration of dark matter to the Solar system center. The dark matter mass in the sphere within Saturn’s orbit should be less than 1.7 × 10^?10 M _⊙ even if its possible concentration is taken into account.     

The temperature variation across the boundary of dark spots on the solar surface

We suppose the transport of energy in a sunspot (or pore) is described by a diffusion process. The thermal conductivities in the spot and its surroundings are assumed to be constant and isotropic, but with a reduced conductivity in the spot. The sunspot and the ambient medium are represented by semi-infinite strips of variable depth, with one common boundary. This interface is a plane inclined at an arbitrary angle with respect to the vertical in order to simulate the inclined magnetic field at the umbral/penumbral, penumbral/photospheric or pore/photospheric boundary.We show that the region with high conductivity below the interface produces a thermal disturbance in the surface layers of the umbra which manifests itself as a temperature enhancement at the umbral surface in a region near the boundary, resulting in a decreased temperature contrast across the surface. The thermal disturbance in the neighboring medium is confined to a very small region.The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.     

Energetics and morphology of powerful impulsive solar flares

We have studied the energetics of two impulsive solar flares of X-ray class X1.7 by assuming the electrons accelerated in several episodes of energy release to be the main source of plasma heating and reached conclusions about their morphology. The time profiles of the flare plasma temperature, emission measure, and their derivatives, and the intensity of nonthermal X-ray emission are compared; images of the X-ray sources and magnetograms of the flare region at key instants of time have been constructed. Based on a spectral analysis of the hard X-ray emission from RHESSI data and GOES observations of the soft X-ray emission, we have estimated the spatially integrated kinetic power of nonthermal electrons and the change in flare-plasma internal energy by taking into account the heat losses through thermal conduction and radiation and determined the parameters needed for thermal balance. We have established that the electrons accelerated at the beginning of the events with a relatively soft spectrum directly heat up the coronal part of the flare loops, with the increase in emission measure and hard X-ray emission from the chromosphere being negligible. The succeeding episodes of electron acceleration with a harder spectrum have virtually no effect on the temperature rise, but they lead to an increase in emission measure and hard X-ray emission from the footpoints of the flare loops.     

LASCO observations of the coronal rotation and morphology of tracers seen at solar maximum and comparison with solar minimum

We present data obtained from the Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft (SOHO). We compare the rotation of the white-light corona as seen during a period approaching the maximum of the solar 11-year activity cycle with that observed in a previous study made at solar minimum (Lewis et al., 1999). We find no fundamental difference in the rotation characteristics and again find the white-light corona to be radially rigid. The rotation has been observed at altitudes from 2.5 R _⊙ to beyond 15 R _⊙ and as predicted in the previous study, the greater level of complexity in the coronal structures and their relatively rapid evolution has not allowed periods to be determined as accurately as at solar minimum. Our best estimate of the mean synodic rotation period during the period of study (7 March 1999 to 6 March 2000) is 27.5±0.3 days. This is consistent with the relatively small scale structures associated with the surface activity imposing their rotation signature on an otherwise axisymmetric background corona. The short-lived nature of the small scale coronal morphologies at this epoch has made a thorough analysis of the latitudinal variation difficult, although we again find some evidence for the white light corona's increased latitudinal rigidity when compared to the underlying photosphere. However, we again note how projection effects create difficulties in confirming the exact degree of rigidity in the corona at these altitudes and a very simple coronal model is used to highlight how the appearance of lower latitude features in projection can contaminate the coronal signal observed at other latitudes. We also note evidence for a sudden and apparently fundamental change to the global coronal morphology on the approach to solar maximum and suggest this may represent the time beyond which the classical solar dipole ceases to dominate the coronal field.     

The dark side of Venus

Ground-based infrared observations have been made of the night hemisphere of the planet Venus around 1.7 and 2.3 μm, confirming the continued presence of dark and light patterns at these wavelengths. The data are inconsistent with two published hypotheses for their origin, but allow a third explanation invoking a broken layer of partially opaque clouds seen projected against the thermal background below. It is shown that around 2.3 μm the major cloud layer at an altitude of about 48 km provides that background, but the intensity of radiatin at 1.74 μm exceeds that expected and is unexplained.     

The dark side of Iapetus

This paper presents new photometric and spectrophotometric observations of the dark (leading) hemisphere of Saturn's satellite Iapetus. Spectrophotometry from 0.3–1.0 um (May 1979) shows the dark hemisphere to be very red, similar to a few asteroids and the Moon, but with no spectral features attributable to olivine or pyroxene. Near-infrared spectrophometry in the regions 1.4–2.5 um (May 1981) and 3.0–3.8 um (February 1981) reveals water ice absorption bands, probably resulting from the polar caps intruding onto the dark hemisphere. The reflectance of Iapetus is unlike that of carbonaceous chondrites or C-type asteroids and most closely resembles the reflectance (and low albedo) of carbonaceous (organic) residue from the Murchison C2 carbonaceous chondrite. The Murchison material has the same red slope and a probable spectral feature near 0.6 um seen in Iapetus data. Three hypotheses for the formation of the dark hemisphere are discussed in light of the observational data. The favored hypothesis is that debris from Phoebe or other unknown outer satellites of Saturn impacts the dark hemisphere of Iapetus as Poynting-Robertson drag causes the debris to spiral toward Saturn. The high-velocity impacts preferentially remove ice from the satellite's surface, causing enrichment of included carbonaceous material intrinsic to Iapetus. The reflectance of Phoebe itself is significantly different from that of Iapetus, suggesting that relatively little Phoebe debris lies on the dark hemisphere. There remains the possibility that the impacting debris originates from another body of composition similar to the Murchison residue and that this material is exposed on the surface of Iapetus.     

The graininess of dark matter haloes

We use the recently completed one billion particle Via Lactea II Λ cold dark matter simulation to investigate local properties like density, mean velocity, velocity dispersion, anisotropy, orientation and shape of the velocity dispersion ellipsoid, as well as the structure in velocity space of dark matter haloes. We show that at the same radial distance from the halo centre, these properties can deviate by orders of magnitude from the canonical, spherically averaged values, a variation that can only be partly explained by triaxiality and the presence of subhaloes. The mass density appears smooth in the central relaxed regions but spans four orders of magnitude in the outskirts, both because of the presence of subhaloes as well as of underdense regions and holes in the matter distribution. In the inner regions, the local velocity dispersion ellipsoid is aligned with the shape ellipsoid of the halo. This is not true in the outer parts where the orientation becomes more isotropic. The clumpy structure in local velocity space of the outer halo cannot be well described by a smooth multivariate normal distribution. Via Lactea II also shows the presence of cold streams made visible by their high 6D phase space density. Generally, the structure of dark matter haloes shows a high degree of graininess in phase space that cannot be described by a smooth distribution function.     

The integrated Sachs–Wolfe effect in cosmologies with coupled dark matter and dark energy

The subject of this paper is the derivation of the integrated Sachs–Wolfe (iSW) effect in cosmologies with coupled dark matter and dark energy fluids. These couplings influence the iSW effect in three ways: the Hubble function assumes a different scaling, the structure growth rate shows a different time evolution and, in addition, the Poisson equation, which relates the density perturbations to fluctuations in the gravitational potential, is changed, due to the violation of the scaling  ρ∝ a ⁻³  of the matter density ρ with scalefactor a . Exemplarily, I derive the iSW spectra for a model in which dark matter decays into dark energy, investigate the influence of the dark matter decay rate and the dark energy equation of state on the iSW signal, and discuss the analogies for gravitational lensing. Quite generally, iSW measurements should reach similar accuracy in determining the dark energy equation of state parameter and the coupling constant.     

The relationship between solar flares and solar sector boundaries

A superposed epoch analysis of 1964–1970 solar flares shows a marked increase in flare occurrence within a day (13° of longitude) of (- +) solar sector boundaries as well as a local minimum in flare occurrence near (+ -)sector boundaries. This preference for (- +) boundaries is more noticeable for northern hemisphere flares, where these polarities match the Hale polarity law, but is not reversed in the south. Plage regions do not show such a preference.     

The value of the superstring tension and dark matter

We start from our extended scenario for the formation of astronomical objects from fragmenting macroscopic superstrings, and we combine it with our view of an “orderly” fragmentation applied to the formation of black holes (Brosche, Lentes & Tassie 2003), now to the whole objects: the radial order of the matter should be preserved. Then we have to adapt the value of the superstring tension derived from the observed ratios of κ = (angular momentum)/(mass squared). If we calculate potential energies on the basis of a fragmentation until baryonic elementary particles, it turns out that the changed string tension explains as well the mechanical state of observed astronomical objects (without large energy loss on the way from the parent string parts) as also the fraction of bound to unbound matter (about 1:10). The implied superstring tension is about μ = (1/3000) c ²/G . This corresponds to a string tension of 4 × 10⁴⁰ Newton. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

The value of the superstring tension and dark matter

The last line of the abstract should read “about μ = 10^–5c ²/G. This corresponds to 1.2 · 10³⁹ Newton”. The main text remains unchanged. (© 2006 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)     

Real time Kp predictions from solar wind data using neural networks

Multilayer feed-forward neural network models are developed to make three-hour predictions of the planetary magnetospheric Kp index. The input parameters for the networks are the B_z-component of the interplanetary magnetic field, the solar wind density n, and the solar wind velocity V, given as three-hour averages. The networks are trained with the error back-propagation algorithm on data sequences extracted from the 21^st solar cycle. The result is a hybrid model consisting of two expert networks providing Kp predictions with an RMS error of 0.96 and a correlation of 0.76 in reference to the measured Kp values. This result can be compared with the linear correlation between V(t) and Kp(t + 3 hours) which is 0.47. The hybrid model is tested on geomagnetic storm events extracted from the 22^nd solar cycle. The hybrid model is implemented and real time predictions of the planetary magnetospheric Kp index are available at http://www.astro.lu. se/-fredrikb.     

The dark component of the photospheric network

We examine a high quality Zeeman-analyzed -scan through CaI 6103, using a 1/10 Å filter. We find that filter shifts of 0.01 Å produce substantial changes in the contrast seen in the photospheric network in the core of the line, implying that the Doppler velocity in the network is constant to within 0.25 km s^–1 or less. Relative line profiles constructed from the -scan indicate that the bright network points have smaller equivalent widths than does the background photosphere and are systematically Doppler shifted toward the red. However, we also find numerous small dark points within the magnetic network which exhibit increased equivalent widths. We infer these to be due to magnetic flux tubes which are highly inclined through the photosphere.Mailing address: 3251 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, Calif. 94304     

The solar wind and the temperature-density structure of the solar corona

The influence of the solar wind on large-scale temperature and density distributions in the lower corona is studied. This influence is most profoundly felt through its effect upon the geometry of coronal magnetic fields since the presence of expansion divides the corona into magnetically open and closed regions. Each of these regions is governed by entirely different energy transport processes. This results in significant temperature differences since only the open field regions suffer outward conductive heat losses. Because the temperature influences the density in an exponential manner, large density inhomogeneities are to be expected.An approximate method for calculating the temperature and density distribution in a known magnetic field geometry is outlined and numerical estimates are carried out for representative coronal conditions. These estimates show that temperature differences of a factor of about two and density differences of ten can be expected in the lower corona even for uniform base conditions. As a result, we do not regard the so-called coronal holes necessairly as locations of reduced mechanical heating. Alternatively, we suggest that they are regions of open magnetic field lines being continuously drained of energy contert by the solar wind expansion and outward thermal conduction.The National Center for Atmospheric Research is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.     

The solar Lyman continuum and the structure of the solar chromosphere

Data on the spectrum and center-to-limb variation of the solar Lyman continuum have been analyzed. They show: (a) The brightness temperature of the Lyman continuum is about 6500 K, but the kinetic temperature, as deduced from the slope of the continuum, lies between 8000 and 9000 K. The difference between the kinetic temperature and the brightness temperature requires that the source function be smaller than the Planck function by a factor of several hundred. (b) The Lyman continuum exhibits slight limb darkening longward of 825 Å, and slight limb brightening shortward of 750 Å. The crossover point varies from equator to pole and with solar activity. (c) The slope d ln I()/d of the Lyman continuum decreases toward the limb, implying that the kinetic temperature increases outward in the region of Lyman continuum formation.Using radiative transfer calculations for a plane-parallel atmosphere in hydrostatic equilibrium, we have derived a homogeneous model of the upper chromosphere that reproduces the main features of the observations. It is characterized by a temperature of 8300 K and a pressure of about 0.15 dyne/cm² at _Lyc = 1, and it has an abrupt temperature rise at a height of 1500 km above the limb. More precise agreement with the observations will require a detailed treatment of the inhomogeneous nature of the upper chromosphere.