On the stability of twisted magnetic fields

The stability of helical magnetic fields is investigated when fluid motions are present along the lines of force. The general dispersion relation is obtained and some limiting cases are examined. It is established that the configuration can be unstable when the velocity field exceeds a certain critical value. This result is to be compared with the case when the helical fields confined by a rigid boundary are stable when the energy density in the velocity field is at least equal to that of the magnetic field.     

Non-minimal coupling of the phantom field and cosmic acceleration

Motivated by the recent interest in phantom fields as candidates for the dark energy component, we investigate the consequences of the phantom field when is minimally coupled to gravity. In particular, the necessary (but insufficient) conditions for the acceleration and superacceleration of the universe are obtained when the non-minimal coupling term is taken into account. Furthermore, the necessary condition for the cosmic acceleration is derived when the phantom field is non-minimally coupled to gravity and baryonic matter is included.     

Stability of a collisionless contact discontinuity

The stability of a contact discontinuity in a collisionless plasma is examined. It is shown that the discontinuity can become unstable when the pressure component normal to the magnetic field is not continuous across the discontinuity. Even when the system is unstable, the growth rates are very small and unimportant in the context of wave propagation, except when the propagation is almost normal to the field. The instability could, however, lead to the slow dissipation of contact discontinuities in the solar wind and in the day side of the cusp region of the solar wind-magnetosphere boundary.     

Simulation and analysis of co-phasing errors of the segmented primary mirror tiled by hexagonal segments in LOT

In this paper, co-phasing errors of a segmented primary mirror tiled by hexagonal segments are successfully calculated for the 12-meter Large aperture Optical/infrared Telescope(LOT). Co-phasing errors including out-of-plane errors are simulated separately and comprehensively based on several software simulation platforms. PAOLA simulation results show that the Strehl Ratio(SR) of LOT is larger than 0.8 when the RMS value of tip-tilt obeying a normal distribution is less than 0.018 arcsec, and the SR of LOT is larger than 0.8 when the RMS value of piston obeying a normal distribution is less than 40 nm. Besides,simulation results of Zemax show that the SR of LOT is larger than 0.8 when the RMS value of tip-tilt obeying a normal distribution is less than 0.02 arcsec, and the SR of LOT is larger than 0.8 when the RMS value of piston obeying a normal distribution is less than 40 nm. These simulation results successfully lay a solid foundation for LOT(especially the segmented primary mirror with active optics).     

Hydromagnetic free-convection flow near a time-varying accelerated vertical plate

The effect of a uniform transverse magnetic field on the free-convection flow of an electrically conducting fluid past an exponentially accelerated infinite vertical plate is analysed for both cases, when the magnetic lines of force are fixed relative to the fluid and the plate, respectively. The Laplace transform method is used to obtain the expressions for velocity and skin-friction. The effect of a magnetic parameter is to decrease the velocity of water when the magnetic field is fixed to the fluid, while it increases the velocity field when the magnetic lines of force are fixed relative to the plate.     

MaxEnt power spectrum estimation using the Fourier transform for irregularly sampled data applied to a record of stellar luminosity

The principle of maximum entropy is applied to the spectral analysis of a data signal with general variance matrix and containing gaps in the record. The role of the entropic regularizer is to prevent one from overestimating structure in the spectrum when faced with imperfect data. Several arguments are presented suggesting that the arbitrary prefactor should not be introduced to the entropy term. The introduction of that factor is not required when a continuous Poisson distribution is used for the amplitude coefficients. We compare the formalism for when the variance of the data is known explicitly to that for when the variance is known only to lie in some finite range. The result of including the entropic measure factor is to suggest a spectrum consistent with the variance of the data which has less structure than that given by the forward transform. An application of the methodology to example data is demonstrated.     

Model dependence of transonic properties of accretion flows around black holes

We analytically study how the behaviour of accretion flows changes when the flow model is varied. We study the transonic properties of the conical flow, a flow of constant height and a flow in vertical equilibrium, and show that all these models are basically identical, provided that the polytropic constant is suitably changed from one model to another. We show that this behaviour is extendible even when standing shocks are produced in the flow. The parameter space where shocks are produced remains roughly identical in all these models when the same transformation among the polytropic indices is used. We present applications of these findings.     

Jump relations for magnetohydrodynamic shock waves in non-ideal gas flow

The generalized jump relations across the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) shock front in non-ideal gas are derived considering the equation of state for non-ideal gas as given by Landau and Lifshitz. The jump relations for pressure, density, and particle velocity have been derived, respectively in terms of a compression ratio. Further, the simplified forms of the MHD shock jump relations have been obtained in terms of non-idealness parameter, simultaneously for the two cases viz., (i) when the shock is weak and, (ii) when it is strong. Finally, the cases of strong and weak shocks are explored under two distinct conditions viz., (i) when the applied magnetic field is strong and, (ii) when the field is weak. The aim of this paper is to contribute to the understanding of how shock waves behave in magnetized environment of non-ideal gases.     

On the stability of artificial equilibrium points in the circular restricted three-body problem

The article analyses the stability properties of minimum-control artificial equilibrium points in the planar circular restricted three-body problem. It is seen that when the masses of the two primaries are of different orders of magnitude, minimum-control equilibrium is obtained when the spacecraft is almost coorbiting with the second primary as long as their mutual distance is not too small. In addition, stability is found when the distance from the second primary exceeds a minimum value which is a simple function of the mass ratio of the two primaries and their separation. Lyapunov stability under non-resonant conditions is demonstrated using Arnold’s theorem. Among the most promising applications of the concept we find solar-sail-stabilized observatories coorbiting with the Earth, Mars, and Venus.     

由两块拼接反射镜组成的光学系统的衍射能量分布

LAMOST的光学系统由反射施密特改正板MA 和球面主镜MB 组成 ,MA 和MB 均为对角径 1 .1m的六角形子镜的拼镜面 .本文计算了星在子午圈上时望远镜观测不同的天区零视场和有视场时的光学系统衍射能量分布 ,还计算了MA 不变MB 改为整块的 6m镜以及MA 和MB 均为对角径 1 .5m的六角形子镜的拼镜面的衍射能量分布 .对这些计算结果进行分析 ,论证了六角形子镜尺寸选择的合理性     

Laminar convection in binary mixture of hydromagnetic flow with radiative heat transfer,II

The hydromagnetic flow in a vertical channel with heat and mass transfer is studied when chemical reaction is present. For the general integral equation for radiative flux and in the absence of the Dufour term, the problem is reduced to a set of coupled integral equations which are solved iteratively. The results are compared with the solutions obtained when chemical reaction is absent.     

Second-order state transition for relative motion near perturbed,elliptic orbits

This paper develops a tensor and its inverse, for the analytical propagation of the position and velocity of a satellite, with respect to another, in an eccentric orbit. The tensor is useful for relative motion analysis where the separation distance between the two satellites is large. The use of nonsingular elements in the formulation ensures uniform validity even when the reference orbit is circular. Furthermore, when coupled with state transition matrices from existing works that account for perturbations due to Earth oblateness effects, its use can very accurately propagate relative states when oblateness effects and second-order nonlinearities from the differential gravitational field are of the same order of magnitude. The effectiveness of the tensor is illustrated with various examples.     

Attitude stability of a rigid body placed at an equilibrium point in the restricted problem of three bodies

This paper is based on the restricted problem of three bodies with the unusual feature that the lightest particle is replaced by a rigid body. The attitude stability of the body is considered when its centre of mass is located at one of the equilibrium points. The stable attitude is determined when the satellite is stationary relative to the primaries. It is found that for some bodies there are two such attitudes, and these are determined.     

耀变体光学波段的微光变及能谱变化

耀变体在多个波段的微光变和能谱变化多年来是中外天文观测研究的热点课题.耀变体的微光变于20世纪60年代被发现,20世纪80年代以来发现很多源的微光变具有不同的特性,目前对其物理机制的认识和理论、模型的研究还处于发展阶段.该文总结了7个目前观测最多的耀变体(3C 66A,3C 279,3C 454.3,AO 0235+164,BL Lac,OJ 287,S5 0716+714)在光学波段的微光变和能谱变化的观测历史和最新进展,并对其理论模型作了简单介绍.     

Hydromagnetic thermal boundary-layer flow near an oscillating limiting surface

Unsteady hydromagnetic thermal boundary layer flow of an electrically conducting, viscous, incompressible fluid near a harmonically oscillating limiting surface (e.g. in stellar atmospheres) is considered when the viscous dissipation and the Joule heating terms are retained in the energy equation. Exact solution of the problem, with the aid of the Laplace transform technique, is obtained when the magnetic Prandtl number is unity. For the purpose of application and discussion of the results, the variations of the temperature and the rate of heat transfer (expressed in the form of the Nusselt number) are presented for different sets of values of the magnetic parameter for the case of two particular fluids — air and water — when the limiting surface is under the condition of either cooling or heating.     

Fluctuations in isothermal spheres

Isolated isothermal spheres of N gravitationally interacting points with equal mass are believed to be stable when density contrasts do not exceed 709. That stability limit does not, however, take into consideration fluctuations of temperature near the onset of instability. These are important when N is finite.
Here we correlate global mean quadratic temperature fluctuations with the onset of instability. We show that such fluctuations trigger instability when the density contrast reaches a value near 709×exp(−3.3 N ^−1/3). These lower values of limiting density contrasts are significantly smaller than 709 when N is not very large, and this suggests (i) that numerical calculations with small N may not reflect correctly the onset of core collapse in clusters with large N , and (ii) that a greater number of globular clusters than is normally believed may already be in an advanced stage of core collapse, because most of the observed globular clusters with parameters that fit quasi-isothermal configurations are close to marginal stability.     

Segregation of the heavy elements in the solar system

The problem of the settling of heavy grains towards the centre of a gaseous globe under the action of the gravitational field of the globe and resisted by the gas of the globe is investigated for the case when the globe is centrally condensed. It is found that the settling time is essentially the same as that for a globe of uniform density (investigated by McCrea and Williams, 1965) when the grains are growing by accretion.     

Simulations of spiral galaxies with an active potential: molecular cloud formation and gas dynamics

We describe simulations of the response of a gaseous disc to an active spiral potential. The potential is derived from an N -body calculation and leads to a multi-armed time-evolving pattern. The gas forms long spiral arms typical of grand-design galaxies, although the spiral pattern is asymmetric. The primary difference from a grand-design spiral galaxy, which has a consistent two-/four-armed pattern, is that instead of passing through the spiral arms, gas generally falls into a developing potential minimum and is released only when the local minimum dissolves. In this case, the densest gas is coincident with the spiral potential, rather than offset as in the grand-design spirals. We would therefore expect no offset between the spiral shock and star formation, and no obvious corotation radius. Spurs which occur in grand-design spirals when large clumps are sheared off leaving the spiral arms, are rare in the active, time-evolving spiral reported here. Instead, large branches are formed from spiral arms when the underlying spiral potential is dissolving due to the N -body dynamics. We find that the molecular cloud mass spectrum for the active potential is similar to that for clouds in grand-design calculations, depending primarily on the ambient pressure rather than the nature of the potential. The largest molecular clouds occur when spiral arms collide, rather than by agglomeration within a spiral arm.     

邢云路对《授时历》日躔过宫推步的改进

考察明末邢云路所撰《古今律历考》中述及的日躔推步实例与先期恢复的《授时历》和《大统历》方法进行推步比对.采用邢云路改进的《授时历》法推步万历己亥岁(1599年)日躔交宫时间,结果与邢氏的标准偏差为5.93刻(=85.39 min),同时交宫夜半黄道宿度的偏差0.06古度(=0.059°);其中若扣除戌宫可能因数据错误产生的较大误差,则标准偏差将降为1.38刻(=19.87 min)和0.01古度(=0.0099°).其次,采用《大统历》计算该年日躔交宫,与邢云路计算的标准偏差为1.09刻(=15.70 min),交宫夜半黄道宿度的标准误差为0.05古度(=0.049°).据此可认为:基本恢复了邢氏的日躔推步方法;邢云路并未对《授时历》的日躔推步方法作本质上的改进,只是修改了其中的年长、周天分及宫界度.研究表明,邢氏所得《大统历》推交宫的结果与《授时历》偏差过大,原因在于其修改了《授时历》的参数,邢氏有厚《授时》薄《大统》之嫌.     

Dynamics of charged particles and perpendicular diffusion in turbulent magnetic field

A test particle code is employed to explore the dynamics of charged particles and perpendicular diffusion in turbulent magnetic field, where a three-dimensional (3D) isotropic turbulence model is used in this paper. The obtained perpendicular diffusion at different particle energies is compared with that of the nonlinear guiding center (NLGC) theory. It is found that the NLGC theory is consistent with test particle simulations when the particle energies are small. However, the difference between the NLGC theory and test particle simulations tends to increase when the particle energy is sufficiently large, and the threshold is related to the turbulence bend-over length. In the NLGC theory, the gyrocenter of a charged particle is assumed to follow the magnetic field line. Therefore, when the particle has sufficiently large energy, its gyroradius will be larger than the turbulence bend-over length. Then the particle can cross the magnetic field lines, and the difference between the test particle simulations and NLGC theory occurs.