Umbral Three-Minute Oscillations and Running Penumbral Waves

We present results of investigations into chromospheric velocity oscillations in sunspots, carried out at the Sayan Solar Observatory. It is shown that the “chevron” structures in the space-time diagrams demonstrate wavetrain properties. Such structures are indicators of a propagating wave process and they are typical of many sunspots. In the authors’ opinion, three-minute umbral oscillations are not the source of running penumbral waves (RPW). It is very likely that umbral oscillations and RPW initially propagate along different magnetic field lines. We explain the decrease in RPW propagation velocity and frequency in the outer penumbra, as compared with the inner, by the combined action of different frequency modes. To better reveal the properties of these modes, frequency filtering was used. Our measurements of the RPW (five-minute mode) wavelength and RPW propagation velocity in different sunspots vary from 12^″ to 30^″ and from 28 to 60 – 70 km s⁻¹ correspondingly.     

Soil erosion,climatic vagary and agricultural change on the Downs around Lewes and Brighton,autumn 1982

Farmland on the Downs between Lewes and Brighton suffered severe erosion during the autumn of 1982. The erosion was widespread and affected a variety of topographic situations, but it was confined to areas of arable land and recently-sown grass leys. Erosion on the scale recorded during the autumn of 1982 has never previously been recorded from this area. Three major sites of erosion are described and explanations for the erosion are sought through an analysis of rainfall conditions experienced during autumn 1982 and in recent changes in agricultural land use on the Downs. It is concluded that, whilst total rainfall and the intensity of rainstorms were both unusually high, similar events are likely to recur several times a century. Evidence is presented which suggests that the ploughing up of permanent pasture, the removal of field boundaries and the increased adoption of autumn-sown cereals have all contributed to the onset of severe erosion. It appears that a major re-activation of erosion on the Downs may be commencing which threatens the long-term viability of farming in the area.     

The Yarkovsky effect as a heat engine

We show how the Yarkovsky effect can be understood as a heat engine. The output of the engine, manifested in the rate of change in semimajor axis of the body, has a maximum at an intermediate heat capacity, depending on the rotation rate of the body. This maximum arises because the work output depends on the product of the solar heat absorbed by the body and transported from its morning to evening side (this am-pm heat flux increases with heat capacity) and the Carnot efficiency (which declines with heat capacity).     

Massless scalar field in Robertson-Walker space-time

Recently, exact spatially-homogeneous solutions have been found for a conformally invariant massless scalar fieldS(t) coupled to a Robertson-Walker geometry. We investigate extending these solutions to inhomogeneous scalar fieldsS(t, x ^l ). For an isotropic scalar fieldS(t, r) we find a solution satisfying three of the five field equations. If we use REDUCE, we show that the remaining equations forceS=S(t).     

Patterns of pH change inferred from chrysophyte microfossils in Adirondack and northern New England lakes

The silica-scaled chrysophytes are being used increasingly in paleolimnological studies of lake acidification. This study compares the distribution of scaled chrysophytes in the surface sediment of a calibration set of lakes from the Adirondack Park and from northern New England. With the exception of two taxa, species distributions with respect to pH are similar in the two regions. The stratigraphic distribution of chrysophytes is then compared in five Adirondack and three New England lakes. All the presently acid lakes indicate recent lake acidification, with more acid tolerant chrysophytes increasing in relative frequency in the recent sediments. Because the timing of these species changes is unrelated to any watershed disturbances that may have occurred in the lakes' catchments, atmospheric deposition of acids is believed responsible for these recent pH changes.This is the seventh of a series of papers to be published by this journal which is a contribution of the Paleoecological Investigation of Recent Lake Acidification (PIRLA) project. Drs. D. F. Charles and D. R. Whitehead are guest editors for this series.     

Modeling X-Ray Photoionized Plasmas Produced at the Sandia Z-Facility

In experiments at the high-power Z-facility at Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, New Mexico, we have been able to produce a low density photoionized laboratory plasma of Fe mixed with NaF. The conditions in the experiment allow a meaningful comparison with X-ray emission from astrophysical sources. The charge state distributions of Fe, Na and F are determined in this plasma using high resolution X-ray spectroscopy. Independent measurements of the density and radiation flux indicate unprecedented values for the ionization parameter ξ = 20–25 erg cm s⁻¹ under nearly steady-state conditions. First comparisons of the measured charge state distributions with X-ray photoionization models show reasonable agreement, although many questions remain.     

Characterization of soil's structural crust by spectral reflectance in the SWIR region (1.2–2.5 μm)

Structural crust is a thin layer formed on the soil surface after a rainstorm. The crust is the result of a physical segregation and rearrangement of soil particles in a way that affects some of the soil properties, such as infiltration, runoff and soil erosion. In practice, there is no rapid, in situ method for monitoring, assessing and mapping crust intensity and quality. In this study, a controlled spectral investigation of the structural crust across the NIR–SWIR spectral region was conducted on three selected Israeli soils, to study the potential of reflectance radiation to detect structural crust in soils. Two major factors served as the driving forces for this study: (1) there is no valid method for in situ assessment of the crust's characteristics in the agriculture field, and (2) the crust might bias thematic remote sensing of soils, because the thin layer of crust blocks photon–matter interaction, which represents the relevant soil body. Through the use of a laboratory rainfall simulator and a sensitive spectrometer, it was revealed that for three selected soils, significant spectral differences occurred between the crust and its bulk soil. The spectral information was found to be related to changes in particle size distribution and texture at the surface of the soil. This conclusion was based on indications of absorption of OH in clay lattice, OH in adsorbed water and CO₃ in carbonates. It was concluded that the structural crust is a phenomenon that should not be ignored by remote-sensing users. In fact, in the field of agriculture, the spectral properties of crust can be used as tools for estimating the crust's intensity.     

Neutron background in large-scale xenon detectors for dark matter searches

Simulations of the neutron background for future large-scale particle dark matter detectors are presented. Neutrons were generated in rock and detector elements via spontaneous fission and (α,n) reactions, and by cosmic-ray muons. The simulation techniques and results are discussed in the context of the expected sensitivity of a generic liquid xenon dark matter detector. Methods of neutron background suppression are investigated. A sensitivity of 10⁻⁹–10⁻¹⁰ pb to WIMP-nucleon interactions can be achieved by a tonne-scale detector.     

Effects of clumping on temperature – I. Externally heated clouds

We present a study of radiative transfer in dusty, clumpy star-forming regions. A series of self-consistent, 3D, continuum radiative transfer models are constructed for a grid of models parametrized by central luminosity, filling factor, clump radius and face-averaged optical depth. The temperature distribution within the clouds is studied as a function of this parametrization. Among our results, we find that: (i) the effective optical depth in clumpy regions is less than in equivalent homogeneous regions of the same average optical depth, leading to a deeper penetration of heating radiation in clumpy clouds, and temperatures higher by over 60 per cent; (ii) penetration of radiation is driven by the fraction of open sky (FOS) – which is a measure of the fraction of solid angle along which no clumps exist; (iii) FOS increases as clump radius increases and as filling factor decreases; (iv) for values of   FOS >0.6–0.8  the sky is sufficiently 'open' that the temperature distribution is relatively insensitive to FOS; (v) the physical process by which radiation penetrates is preferentially through streaming of radiation between clumps as opposed to diffusion through clumps; (vi) filling factor always dominates the determination of the temperature distribution for large optical depths, and for small clump radii at smaller optical depths; (vii) at lower face-averaged optical depths, the temperature distribution is most sensitive to filling factors of 1–10 per cent, in accordance with many observations; (viii) direct shadowing by clumps can be important for distances approximately one clump radius behind a clump.