Nonlinear Generation of Fluting Perturbations by Kink Mode

We study the excitation of fluting perturbations in a magnetic tube by an initially imposed kink mode. We use the ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) equations in the cold-plasma approximation. We also use the thin-tube approximation and scale the dependent and independent variables accordingly. Then we assume that the dimensionless amplitude of the kink mode is small and use it as an expansion parameter in the regular perturbation method. We obtain the expression for the tube boundary perturbation in the second-order approximation. This perturbation is a superposition of sausage and fluting perturbations. The amplitude of the fluting perturbation takes its maximum at the middle of the tube, and it monotonically decreases with the distance from the middle of the tube.     

A generalised principle of invariance and radiation field in multilayer atmospheres

A generalized principle of invariance is derived for a plane-parallel atmosphere. On the basis of this principle a method for determining the radiation field in a multilayer atmosphere is proposed. This method, the first part of which is the well-known adding method, permits the application to problems involving optically finite as well as semi-infinite atmospheres. The reflecting boundaries may be incorporated, though in that case it is not possible to use the adding method.Some numerical results are given for the standard and Milne problems and for the problem with internal sources.     

Variable inertia method: A novel numerical method for mantle convection simulation

3D numerical simulations have been very useful for the understanding of mantle convection of the earth. In almost all previous simulations of mantle convection, the (extended) Boussinesq approximation has been used. This method is implicit in the sense that buoyancy force and viscosity are balanced, and allows the use of long timesteps that are not limited by the CFL condition. However, the resulting matrix is ill-conditioned, in particular since the viscosity strongly depends on the temperature. It is not well-suited to modern large-scale parallel machines.In this paper, we propose an explicit method which can be used to solve the mantle convection problem. If we can reduce the sound speed without changing the characteristics of the flow, we can increase the timestep and thus can use the explicit method. In order to reduce the sound speed, we multiplied the inertia term of the equation of motion by a large and viscosity-dependent coefficient. Theoretically, we can expect that this modification would not change the flow as long as the Reynolds number and the Mach number are sufficiently smaller than unity. We call this method the variable inertia method (VIM).We have performed an extensive set of numerical tests of the proposed method for thermal convection, and concluded that it works well. In particular, it can handle differences in viscosity of more than five orders of magnitude.     

IRAS 17213-3841:晚型富碳星还是早型发射线星?

IRAS 17213-3841作为富碳星列于新版碳星星表中．然而该星的IRAS低分辨率光谱显示富氧的硅酸盐发射特征；光谱观测结果表明，该星是一个接近零龄主序的，光谱型为O9／B0的早型发射线星，而不是碳星，因此应从碳星星表中剔除．此外，将它证认为碳星的近红外-IRAS双色图方法并不是一个完全可靠的方法，用这一方法来证认碳星必须十分小心．     

A New Method to Determine the Derivatives of the Laplace Coefficients

The determination of the secular variations of the orbital elements of objects in N-body systems is based on the literal development of the perturbing function. The development makes use of the Laplace coefficients and their derivatives. In this paper a new method is described for the analytical computation of the derivatives of the Laplace coefficients. It is an explicit formula in the sense that it only contains the Laplace coefficients and the parameter on which the Laplace coefficients depend. The advantage of this method is that it is unnecessary to calculate all the derivatives up to the desired order. It is enough to calculate the Laplace coefficients. Easy coding is a further benefit of the method and it provides more accurate numerical results. The paper describes in detail the application of the method through an example and gives comparison with former methods.This revised version was published online in October 2005 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Simple impact crater shape determination from shadows

Crater depths, often obtained from shadow measurements, have long been used for several purposes in planetary science. However, the usual method for obtaining depth from shadow length suffers from several drawbacks and limitations. Chappelow and Sharpton (2002) introduced a much improved shadow method, which has the advantages of giving some shape information (as well as depth), and is not limited to shadows that cross the crater bottom. However, it is not general, in that it only gives very approximate crater shape information, in terms of three special cases (parabolic, conical, or flat‐floored). Here, I present a completely generalized method, valid for any conic section shaped crater, and give a proof of concept and demonstration of its use, using Linne crater as a test case. In the process, I find that Linne is neither parabolic nor conical, and that it contains approximately 20 m of bottom fill, which forms a flat floor. I also conclude that the long‐used parabolic paradigm for the shapes of simple craters may need to be revised.     

Accumulation of Fourier component phases during object observation through a turbulent atmosphere. III

We investigate whether it is possible to overcome the limitations on the efficient application of Fourier-component phase accumulation method. We suggest the use of an instrument with a composite aperture for observation. It is shown that, in this case, the limitations are shifted as many times as the subaperture’s size is less than the typical size of atmospheric inhomogeneities. The interferograms obtained by means of a multibeam interpherometer are processed with the help of the total phase accumulation method using a computer model and the results are presented in the paper.     

Merging a Line Profile Series Into an One-Dimensional Dataset, an Applied Technique for Nonradial Pulsation Mode Diagnosis

A new method of nonradial pulsation mode identification is developed. This method is based on Fourier analysis of time series line profile variations that have been merged into a one-dimensional equally spaced dataset. In principle, this method is identical to that of two-dimensional Fourier transform of line profile time series, but it is much more convenient to use for most of astronomers who have experience in period analysis of light curves. The features of both temporal frequency and Doppler spatial frequency can be accurately retrieved. This method provides an easy way to carry out mode identification from line profiles and minimizes the uncertainty of mode determination caused by random noise. Comments and assessment of related methods of mode identification are given. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The magnetoheliograph

A method is described, which makes it possible to obtain a magnetic photograph directly in one image without the use of photographic subtraction.Presently Guest Investigator at the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories.     

Substructure recovery by three-dimensional discrete wavelet transforms

We present and discuss a method to identify substructures in combined angular-redshift samples of galaxies within clusters. The method relies on the use of the discrete wavelet transform (hereafter DWT) and has already been applied to the analysis of the Coma cluster. The main new ingredient of our method with respect to previous studies lies in the fact that we make use of a 3D data set rather than a 2D one. We test the method on mock cluster catalogues with spatially localized substructures and on a N -body simulation. Our main conclusion is that our method is able to identify the existing substructures provided that: (a) the subclumps are detached in part or all of the phase space, (b) one has a statistically significant number of redshifts, increasing as the distance decreases due to redshift distortions; (c) one knows a priori the scale on which substructures are to be expected. We have found that to allow an accurate recovery we must have both a significant number of galaxies (≈200 for clusters at z ≥0.4 or about 800 at z ≤0.4) and a limiting magnitude for completeness m _B =16.
The only true limitation to our method seems to be the necessity of knowing a priori the scale on which the substructure is to be found. This is an intrinsic drawback of the method and no improvement in numerical codes based on this technique could make up for it.     

Alignment of Fabry-Pérot Interferometer Plates in a Solar Vector Magnetograph

I describe a method for quickly and accurately determining the plate parallelism in a tunable Fabry-Pérot interferometer. The method takes advantage of the fact that our Fabry-Pérot is installed in a spectropolarimeter: we measure profiles of solar or telluric absorption lines in three differently polarized telescope subapertures and use the residual polarization profiles to determine the plate parallelism error. An example of the error as a function of time during the observing day is also shown; it changes in a consistent way with telescope hour angle but the drift is enough to require frequent adjustment.     

A method to measure the mirror reflectivity of a prime focus telescope

We have developed a method to measure the mirror reflectivity of telescopes. While it is relatively easy to measure the local reflectivity of the mirror material, it is not so straightforward to measure the amount of light that it focuses in a spot of a given diameter. Our method is based on the use of a CCD camera that is fixed on the mirror dish structure and observes simultaneously part of the telescope’s focal plane and the sky region around its optical axis. A white diffuse reflecting disk of known reflectivity is fixed in the telescopes focal plane. During a typical reflectivity measurement the telescope is directed to a selected star. The CCD camera can see two images of the selected star, one directly and another one as a spot focused by the mirror on the white disk. The ratio of the reflected starlight integrated by the CCD from the white disk to the directly measured one provides a precise result of the product of (mirror area × mirror reflectivity).     

泊松分布下线性多重回归问题

对一实验数据组进行线性多重回归,如果数据的涨落服从泊松概率分布,常用方法不能给出准确的解。一般地,是假设各泊松分布的形状近似于高斯分布,给出近似解。因此,也存在着人所共知的拟合曲线下的面积亏损问题。本文从最大或然法出发,不加任何假设,严格推导了求解泊松分布线性多重回归的一种方法。按这一方法,“面积亏损”问题在计算精度范围内也得到彻底解决。     

Determination of the orbital parameters of binary pulsars

We present a simple, novel method for determining the orbital parameters of binary pulsars. This method works with any sort of orbital sampling, no matter how sparse, provided that information on the period derivatives is available with each measurement of the rotational period of the pulsar, and it is applicable to binary systems with nearly circular orbits. We use the technique to estimate precisely the hitherto unknown orbital parameters of two binary millisecond pulsars in the globular cluster 47 Tucanae, 47 Tuc S and T. The method can also be used more generally to make first-order estimates of the orbital parameters of binary systems using a minimal number of data.     

Material flows of an evolving magnetic field

The possibility of material flows to trace out the magnetic field configuration is examined through numerical simulations. In particular, the evolution of a magnetic arcade due to differential motions of its footpoints is considered. With the use of numerical scheme based on the method of projected characteristics and newly derived proper boundary conditions, it is shown that material flows develop to outline the configuration of evolving magnetic field. Physical implications of the results are discussed.     

太阳大气中矢量磁场信息的推导

一种能从观测到的斯托克斯轮廓中提取太阳表面矢量磁场信息的方法在本文中提出，它利用斯托克斯轮廓非线心的极值点处相应参量对波长的导数为零这一数学事实，假设表面附近磁场矢量及热力学参量的变化梯度足够小以致所考虑的极值点的波长位置不随深度改变或此变化呆忽则使得偏振辐射围方程组得到极大的简化；再应用数值方法从此简化方程组中解出辐射表面附近的磁场矢量参数。通过拟合理论轮廓表明该法确实可以得到表面近似的磁场矢量     

Groups of galaxies. II. Determination of the values of selection parameters

The CfAl Catalog of Huchra et al. is examined for identification of groups of galaxies with the use of a variation of the percolation method previously used by Huchra and Geller. The main difference between our method and Huchra-Geller method is in the selection criterion for components. We use the value of the gravitational field potential to determine component galaxies. This approach is physically more valid than the distances between galaxies. It is shown that the selection parameters E₀ and V₀ need not be changed with distance to account for changes in the observed luminosity function of galaxies. Thus, it is unnecessary in our approach to use the luminosity function of galaxies for identification of groups. The dependence of the main characteristics of groups on the selection parameters is investigated. The interval of the selection parameters within which the group characteristics are least dependent on these parameters is determined. Groups of galaxies detected with any pairs of E₀ and V₀ values from these intervals can be considered essentially real. Translated fromAstrofizika, Vol. 40, No. 1, pp. 45–60, February, 1997.     

A simple unsplit Godunov method for multidimensional MHD

We describe a numerical algorithm based on Godunov methods for integrating the equations of compressible magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) in multidimensions. It combines a simple, dimensionally-unsplit integration method with the constrained transport (CT) discretization of the induction equation to enforce the divergence-free constraint. We present the results of a series of fully three-dimensional tests which indicate the method is second-order accurate for smooth solutions in all MHD wave families, and captures shocks, contact and rotational discontinuities well. However, it is also more diffusive than other more complex unsplit integrators combined with CT. Thus, the primary advantage of the method is its simplicity. It does not require a characteristic tracing step to construct interface values for the Riemann solver, it is straightforward to extend with additional physics, and it is suitable for use with nested and adaptive meshes. The method is implemented as one of two dimensionally unsplit MHD integrators in the Athena code, which is freely available for download from the web.     

On determining membership of open clusters from relative proper motion

We discuss the determination of membership of 42 open clusters. Our analysis shows that Vasilevskis' mathematical model can be reasonably applied to this case. Our improved version of Sanders' method and our definition of cluster member based on the principles of discriminatory analysis effectively exclude stars of low probabilities. It is important in the study of open cluster to use only those with high probabilities. The effectiveness of the statistical method is closely related to the velocity distributions of the member and field stars. For fields where the error rate is high, it is better to combine other data than proper motion in determining membership.     

An improved method for 21-cm foreground removal

21-cm tomography is expected to be difficult in part because of serious foreground contamination. Previous studies have found that line-of-sight approaches are capable of cleaning foregrounds to an acceptable level on large spatial scales, but not on small spatial scales. In this paper, we introduce a Fourier space formalism for describing the line-of-sight methods, and use it to introduce an improved new method for 21-cm foreground cleaning. Heuristically, this method involves fitting foregrounds in Fourier space using weighted polynomial fits, with each pixel weighted according to its information content. We show that the new method reproduces the old one on large angular scales, and gives marked improvements on small scales at essentially no extra computational cost.