Search for supernova neutrino bursts with the AMANDA detector

The core collapse of a massive star in the Milky Way will produce a neutrino burst, intense enough to be detected by existing underground detectors. The AMANDA neutrino telescope located deep in the South Pole ice can detect MeV neutrinos by a collective rate increase in all photo-multipliers on top of dark noise. The main source of light comes from positrons produced in the CC reaction of anti-electron neutrinos on free protons . This paper describes the first supernova search performed on the full sets of data taken during 1997 and 1998 (215 days of live time) with 302 of the detector's optical modules. No candidate events resulted from this search. The performance of the detector is calculated, yielding a 70% coverage of the galaxy with one background fake per year with 90% efficiency for the detector configuration under study. An upper limit at the 90% c.l. on the rate of stellar collapses in the Milky Way is derived, yielding 4.3 events per year. A trigger algorithm is presented and its performance estimated. Possible improvements of the detector hardware are reviewed.     

The supernova neutrino pulse shape in the scintillation detector

The temporal structure of the neutrino scintillation detector response to the supernova explosion signal is calculated, taking into account the duration and the spectrum of the supernova neutrino radiation and also the neutrino rest-mass.     

Solar neutrino data and the 11-year solar activity cycle

Recent data on solar neutrino flux have been analysed and it is shown that there is a statistically significant variation of solar neutrino flux data with the solar activity cycle. Thus the observation suggests that the solar activity cycle is due to the pulsating characters of the nuclear energy generation in the interior of the Sun.     

Solar neutrino flux,cosmic rays,and the solar activity cycle

It is suggested that the experimental data on the solar neutrino flux as measured by Davis and his collaborators from 1970 to 1982 vary with the solar activity cycle to a very high level of statistical significance for all the available tests of the hypothesis (e.g., (t-test, ²-test, run test, Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney test) when the solar neutrino flux data are computed from the weighted moving averages of order 5. The above tests have also been applied to the data that have been generated by the Monte Carlo simulation with production rate and background rate parameters that are typical of those in the actual experiment. It is shown that the Monte Carlo simulated data do not indicate a variation within the solar cycle. Thus the moving average data strongly favours the variation within the solar activity cycle.     

Solar diameter(s)

Because of the renewed attention now paid to the solar diameter, its variations from equator to pole, or its secular or long-period changes, the question: what is a solar diameter? is not meaningless. Two kinds of definitions may be given: either astrophysical, each one relating to a specific physical parameter, or observational, relating to a given quantity to be measured. Only the second kind is directly accessible, and astrophysical definitions should be linked to these quantities, once they are determined with the highest possible accuracy. In practice, all the programs under way refer to the point of the limb where the brightness gradient is maximum, or to a higher order approximation of the shape of the profile. Two of them are compared: the Pic-du-Midi experiment, using fast scans of the limb to define the inflection point after a correction for the blurring effect of the atmosphere, and the SCLERA experiment, using the algorithm called FFTD to eliminate this correction. The advantage of a fast scan is emphasized, and the remark is formulated that, once the signal is digitized and stored, FFTD or any processing of it can be performed. In collecting day-long one-limb scans to calibrate the blurring correction, the authors have found fluctuations of the maximum brightness gradient which provide a new entry to the field of solar oscillations.     

Solar wind interaction with Comet Bennett (1969i)

This paper examines the relations between the solar-wind and Comet Bennett during the period March 23 to April 5, 1970. A large kink was observed in the ion tail of the comet on April 4, but no solar-wind stream was observed in the ecliptic plane which could have caused the kink. Thus, either there was no correlation between the solar wind at the Earth and that at Comet Bennett (which was 40° above the ecliptic) or the kink was caused by something other than a high-speed stream. The fine structure visible in photographs of the kink favors the second of these alternatives. It is shown that a shock probably passed through Comet Bennett on March 31, but no effect was seen in photographs of the comet. A stream preceded by another shock and a large abrupt change in momentum flux might have intercepted the comet between March 24 and March 28, but again no effect was seen in photographs of the Comet. In view of these results, one must seriously consider the possibility that a large, abrupt change in momentum flux of the solar-wind (such as that at a shock wave or ahead of a stream) is neither necessary nor sufficient to cause a large kink in a comet tail.On leave from Institute für Astrophysik Technische Universität Berlin West Germany.     

Brazilian Solar Spectroscope (bss)

Digital, decimetric (200–2500 MHz) Brazilian Solar Spectroscope (BSS) with high time (10–1000 ms) and frequency (1–10 MHz) resolution is in regular operation since April, 1998, at National Space Research Institute (INPE) at São José dos Campos, Brazil. BSS operates in conjunction with a 9-m diameter polar mounted antenna. It allows to select suitable observing frequency range, frequency and time resolutions and data can be digitized up to 100 channels. BSS has capabilities of quasi-real time display of the ongoing dynamic spectra of the solar activity that enables the observer to modify observational parameters so as to suit a specific type of activity such as spikes and improve the quality of data acquisition and storage. Minimum detectable flux density of the spectroscope, for different combinations of the observational parameters, is 3 s.f.u. Observations are carried out routinely from 11 UT to 19 UT. Necessary software for data acquisition and reductions has been developed in IDL 5.3 environment. Data are available in FITS and ASCII formats. Absolute timing accuracy of the station is less than 3 ms. Here, we present examples of the bursts which have been recorded by BSS and available display facilities.     

Solar magnetism eXplorer (SolmeX)

The magnetic field plays a pivotal role in many fields of Astrophysics. This is especially true for the physics of the solar atmosphere. Measuring the magnetic field in the upper solar atmosphere is crucial to understand the nature of the underlying physical processes that drive the violent dynamics of the solar corona—that can also affect life on Earth. SolmeX, a fully equipped solar space observatory for remote-sensing observations, will provide the first comprehensive measurements of the strength and direction of the magnetic field in the upper solar atmosphere. The mission consists of two spacecraft, one carrying the instruments, and another one in formation flight at a distance of about 200 m carrying the occulter to provide an artificial total solar eclipse. This will ensure high-quality coronagraphic observations above the solar limb. SolmeX integrates two spectro-polarimetric coronagraphs for off-limb observations, one in the EUV and one in the IR, and three instruments for observations on the disk. The latter comprises one imaging polarimeter in the EUV for coronal studies, a spectro-polarimeter in the EUV to investigate the low corona, and an imaging spectro-polarimeter in the UV for chromospheric studies. SOHO and other existing missions have investigated the emission of the upper atmosphere in detail (not considering polarization), and as this will be the case also for missions planned for the near future. Therefore it is timely that SolmeX provides the final piece of the observational quest by measuring the magnetic field in the upper atmosphere through polarimetric observations.     

Solar Cycle Predictions (Invited Review)

Solar Physics - Solar cycle predictions are needed to plan long-term space missions, just as weather predictions are needed to plan the launch. Fleets of satellites circle the Earth collecting many...     

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

The Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) was launched on 11 February 2010 at 15:23 UT from Kennedy Space Center aboard an Atlas V 401 (AV-021) launch vehicle. A?series of apogee-motor firings lifted SDO from an initial geosynchronous transfer orbit into a circular geosynchronous orbit inclined by 28° about the longitude of the SDO-dedicated ground station in New Mexico. SDO began returning science data on 1 May 2010. SDO is the first space-weather mission in NASA’s Living With a Star (LWS) Program. SDO’s main goal is to understand, driving toward a predictive capability, those solar variations that influence life on Earth and humanity’s technological systems. The SDO science investigations will determine how the Sun’s magnetic field is generated and structured, how this stored magnetic energy is released into the heliosphere and geospace as the solar wind, energetic particles, and variations in the solar irradiance. Insights gained from SDO investigations will also lead to an increased understanding of the role that solar variability plays in changes in Earth’s atmospheric chemistry and climate. The SDO mission includes three scientific investigations (the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA), Extreme Ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE), and Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI)), a spacecraft bus, and a dedicated ground station to handle the telemetry. The Goddard Space Flight Center built and will operate the spacecraft during its planned five-year mission life; this includes: commanding the spacecraft, receiving the science data, and forwarding that data to the science teams. The science investigations teams at Stanford University, Lockheed Martin Solar Astrophysics Laboratory (LMSAL), and University of Colorado Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) will process, analyze, distribute, and archive the science data. We will describe the building of SDO and the science that it will provide to NASA.     

Solar radio burst (type III)

This article describes the observations of a type III radio burst observed at 103 MHz simultaneously by the two radio telescopes situated at Rajkot (22.3°N, 70.7°E) and Thaltej (23°N, 72.4°E). This event occurred on September 30, 1993 at about 0430 UT and lasted for only half a minute. The event consisted of several sharp spikes in a group. The rise and fall time of these are comparable, however the peaks of individual spikes varied by a factor of four. The comparison of these observations with the data of solar radio spectrograph HiRAS indicates that this was a metric radio burst giving highest emission at about 103 MHz.     

Estimation of Solar Observations with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Radio Telescope(FAST)

We present the estimation of solar observation with the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical radio Telescope(FAST). For both the quiet Sun and the Sun with radio bursts, when pointing directly to the Sun, the total power received by FAST would be out of the safe operational range of the signal chain, even resulting in damage to the receiver. As a conclusion, the Sun should be kept at least ～2° away from the main beam during observations at～1.25 GHz. The separation for lower frequency should be ...     

High-Precision Measurements of the Solar Diameter and Oblateness by the Solar Disk Sextant (SDS) Experiment

We reduce and analyze, in a uniform way, all of the data obtained by the Solar Disk Sextant (SDS) experiment, concerning high-precision measurements of the solar radius and oblateness, in the bandwidth 590 {–} 670 nm, made onboard stratospheric balloons during a series of flights carried out in 1992, 1994, 1995, and 1996. The measured radius value appears anti-correlated with the level of solar activity, ranging from about 959.5 to 959.7 arcsec. Its variation from year to year is outside the error range, which is mostly due to a systematic diurnal behavior, particularly evident in the 1996 flight. The oblateness shows an analogous temporal behavior, ranging from about (4.3 to 10.3) × 10⁻⁶. We regret that Prof. Caccin died on June 19, 2004.     

Computer Vision for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

In Fall 2008 NASA selected a large international consortium to produce a comprehensive automated feature-recognition system for the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The SDO data that we consider are all of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) images plus surface magnetic-field images from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI). We produce robust, very efficient, professionally coded software modules that can keep up with the SDO data stream and detect, trace, and analyze numerous phenomena, including flares, sigmoids, filaments, coronal dimmings, polarity inversion lines, sunspots, X-ray bright points, active regions, coronal holes, EIT waves, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), coronal oscillations, and jets. We also track the emergence and evolution of magnetic elements down to the smallest detectable features and will provide at least four full-disk, nonlinear, force-free magnetic field extrapolations per day. The detection of CMEs and filaments is accomplished with Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO)/Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) and ground-based Hα data, respectively. A?completely new software element is a trainable feature-detection module based on a generalized image-classification algorithm. Such a trainable module can be used to find features that have not yet been discovered (as, for example, sigmoids were in the pre-Yohkoh era). Our codes will produce entries in the Heliophysics Events Knowledgebase (HEK) as well as produce complete catalogs for results that are too numerous for inclusion in the HEK, such as the X-ray bright-point metadata. This will permit users to locate data on individual events as well as carry out statistical studies on large numbers of events, using the interface provided by the Virtual Solar Observatory. The operations concept for our computer vision system is that the data will be analyzed in near real time as soon as they arrive at the SDO Joint Science Operations Center and have undergone basic processing. This will allow the system to produce timely space-weather alerts and to guide the selection and production of quicklook images and movies, in addition to its prime mission of enabling solar science. We briefly describe the complex and unique data-processing pipeline, consisting of the hardware and control software required to handle the SDO data stream and accommodate the computer-vision modules, which has been set up at the Lockheed-Martin Space Astrophysics Laboratory (LMSAL), with an identical copy at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO).     

太阳活动起源研究(Ⅱ):太阳发电机理论

对试图解释太阳活动起源的太阳发电机理论作了综合评述。着重介绍了平均场运动学发电机理论，包括平均场的α效应，运用学的αΩ发电机和迁移发电机。讨论了MHD发电机和其它类型发电机的研究概况。     

The Solar Mass-Ejection Imager (SMEI) Mission

We have launched into near-Earth orbit a solar mass-ejection imager (SMEI) that is capable of measuring sunlight Thomson-scattered from heliospheric electrons from elongations to as close as 18 to greater than 90 from the Sun. SMEI is designed to observe time-varying heliospheric brightness of objects such as coronal mass ejections, co-rotating structures and shock waves. The instrument evolved from the heliospheric imaging capability demonstrated by the zodiacal light photometers of the Helios spacecraft. A near-Earth imager can provide up to three days warning of the arrival of a mass ejection from the Sun. In combination with other imaging instruments in deep space, or alone by making some simple assumptions about the outward flow of the solar wind, SMEI can provide a three-dimensional reconstruction of the surrounding heliospheric density structures.