Ballooning Instability in Coronal Flare Loops

Within the framework of ideal magnetohydrodynamics the excitation of the ballooning instability in a toroidal coronal loop with a radius of cross section a and a radius of curvature R is analyzed by using the energy method. Kink oscillations are able to excite the ballooning instability when the plasma beta parameter β>2a/R. It has been suggested that this can result in the formation of cusp-shaped coronal loops. Modulation of gyrosynchrotron emission caused by kink oscillations is considered. The intensity of gyrosynchrotron emission for optically thin sources is the most sensitive to Alfvén disturbances. The obtained theoretical results are discussed in the light of Yohkoh, SOHO, TRACE, RHESSI, and Nobeyama observations.     

Performance evaluation of a ground-source heat pump system utilizing a flowing well and estimation of suitable areas for its installation in Aizu Basin,Japan

Development of a ground-source heat pump (GSHP) system with higher efficiency, and evaluation of its operating performance, is essential to expand the growth of GSHP systems in Japan. A closed-loop GSHP system was constructed utilizing a flowing (artesian) well as a ground heat exchanger (GHE). The system was demonstrated for space-heating and space-cooling of a room (area 126.7 m²) in an office building. The average coefficient of performance was found to be 4.5 for space-heating and 8.1 for space-cooling. The maximum heat exchange rate was 70.8 W/m for space-heating and 57.6 W/m for space-cooling. From these results, it was determined that a GSHP system with a flowing well as a GHE can result in higher performance. With this kind of highly efficient system, energy saving and cost reduction can be expected. In order to assess appropriate locations for the installation of similar kinds of GSHP systems in Aizu Basin, a suitability map showing the distribution of groundwater up-flowing areas was prepared based on the results of a regional-scale three-dimensional analytical model. Groundwater up-flowing areas are considered to be suitable because the flowing well can be constructed at these areas. Performance evaluation of the GSHP system utilizing the flowing well, in conjunction with the prepared suitability map for its installation, can assist in the promotion of GSHP systems in Japan.     

Height measurements ofS-components

The direct measurement of the height of the radio source above a solar active region was done by the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope when the source crossed the west limb. The height of the brightest part was 12000 km above the limb. The result of the disk observation is also presented and the emission mechanisms of the observed sources are discussed.Paper presented at the IAU Third Asian-Pacific Regional Meeting, held in Kyoto, Japan, between 30 September–6 October, 1984.     

Rapid subsidence of the Kikai Seamount inferred from drowned Pleistocene coral limestone: Implication for subduction of the Amami Plateau,northern Philippine Sea

Carbonate rock cores drilled on the Kikai Seamount, northern Philippine Sea are examined for better understanding of tectonic history of the northern Philippine Sea. The Kikai Seamount, the summit of which is at 1960 m water depth, is an isolated high on the northwestern part of the Amami Plateau formed by subduction-related arc volcanism, and is situated close to the axis of the Ryukyu Trench in front of the Ryukyu Arc, SW Japan. The seamount is capped with shallow-water carbonates such as coral rudstone. Detailed examinations of lithology, larger foraminiferal assemblages, and Sr isotope composition reveal that the core material comprises Miocene carbonates unconformably overlain by Early Pleistocene carbonates. It indicates rapid subsidence of the Kikai Seamount since the Early Pleistocene. The most probable cause of rapid subsidence is collision and subduction of the Amami Plateau laden with the Kikai Seamount. The rapid subsidence may have started when the western corner of the plateau reached the Ryukyu Trench and began subduction beneath the Ryukyu Arc. The onset of the subsidence is likely to be controlled by a motion change in the Philippine Sea Plate. The latest change in subduction direction from north to northwestward into northwestward to west has been believed to have occurred at 1-2 Ma during latest Pliocene to Early Pleistocene time. The change of direction resulted in the shift from oblique into right-angle subduction of the plate beneath the Ryukyu Arc and also the onset of the collision and subduction of the Amami Plateau.     

Dissipation of diamagnetic currents and plasma heating in coronal magnetic loops

SOHO and TRACE data have shown that the coronal plasma is heated most actively near sunspots, in magnetic loops that issue from the penumbral region. The source of heating is nonuniform in height, and its power is maximum near the footpoints of the magnetic loops. The heating process is typically accompanied by the injection of dense chromospheric plasma into the coronal parts of the magnetic loops. It is important that the radiative losses cannot be compensated for via electron thermal conduction in the loops, which have temperatures of 1.0–1.5 MK; therefore, some heating source must operate throughout the entire length of the loop, balancing radiative losses and maintaining a quasi-steady state of the loop over at least several hours. As observations show, the plasma density inside the loops exceeds the density of the ambient plasma by more than an order of magnitude. It is supposed that the enhanced plasma density inside the loops results from the development of the ballooning mode of a flute-type instability in the sunspot penumbra, where the plasma of the inner sunspot region, with β _i ? 1, comes into contact with the dense chromospheric plasma, which has β _e ? β _i (β is the gas-to-magnetic pressure ratio). As the chromospheric plasma penetrates into the potential field of the sunspot, the generated diamagnetic currents balance the excess gas pressure. These currents efficiently decay due to the Cowling conductivity. Even if neutrals are few in number in the plasma (accounting for less than 10^?5 of the total mass density), this conductivity ensures a heating rate that exceeds the rate of the normal Joule dissipation of diamagnetic currents by 7–8 orders of magnitude. Helium is an important factor in the context of plasma heating in magnetic loops. Its relatively high ionization potential, while not forbidding dielectronic recombination, ensures a sufficiently high number of neutrals in the coronal plasma and maintains a high heating rate due to the Cowling conductivity, even at coronal temperatures. The heating results from the “burning-out” of the nonpotential component of the magnetic field of the coronal magnetic loops. This mechanism provides the necessary heating rate for the plasma inside the loops if the loops are thin enough (with thickness of the order of 10⁵–10⁶ cm). This may imply that the observed (1–5) × 10⁸-cm-thick loops consist of numerous hot, thin threads. For magnetic loops in hydrostatic equilibrium, the calculated heating function exponentially decreases with height on characteristic scales a factor of 1.8 smaller than the total-pressure scale height, since the scale heights for the total pressure and for the ⁴He partial pressure are different. The heating rate is proportional to the square of the plasma pressure in the loop, in agreement with observational data.

     

Dimethylsulfide in coastal zone of the East China Sea

Dimethylsulfide (DMS) in seawater were observed four times from February 1993 to August 1994 along a fixed section (PN line) in the East China Sea. The DMS concentrations showed remarkable temporal and spatial variations. The DMS concentrations were generally higher in the upper euphotic layer of the continental shelf zone in summer. The spatial variation, however, was more pronounced even in well mixed winter water, where the concentration of DMS varied widely from 3 to 106 ng-S/l in the continental shelf zone while the salinity was vertically almost uniform. This means that DMS in seawater is rapidly produced and decomposed with a time scale less than one month in the water column. The largest value of 376 ng-S/l was obtained at 5 m depth near the mouth of Changjiang River in August 1994. The mean concentrations in the surface 30 m layer in the continental shelf zone were 21, 54, 126 and 57 ng-S/l in February, October, June and August, respectively, which were about twice as large as those in the Kuroshio region. The mean fluxes of DMS from the East China Sea to the atmosphere are estimated to be 49 g-S/m²/day in winter and 194 g-S/m²/day in summer in the continental shelf zone, and to be 32 and 107 g-S/m²/day in the Kuroshio region.     

The Hinode X-Ray Telescope (XRT): Camera Design, Performance and Operations

The X-ray Telescope (XRT) aboard the Hinode satellite is a grazing incidence X-ray imager equipped with a 2048×2048 CCD. The XRT has 1 arcsec pixels with a wide field of view of 34×34 arcmin. It is sensitive to plasmas with a wide temperature range from < 1 to 30 MK, allowing us to obtain TRACE-like low-temperature images as well as Yohkoh/SXT-like high-temperature images. The spacecraft Mission Data Processor (MDP) controls the XRT through sequence tables with versatile autonomous functions such as exposure control, region-of-interest tracking, flare detection, and flare location identification. Data are compressed either with DPCM or JPEG, depending on the purpose. This results in higher cadence and/or wider field of view for a given telemetry bandwidth. With a focus adjust mechanism, a higher resolution of Gaussian focus may be available on-axis. This paper follows the first instrument paper for the XRT (Golub et al., Solar Phys. 243, 63, 2007) and discusses the design and measured performance of the X-ray CCD camera for the XRT and its control system with the MDP.     

Radio Emission of the Quiet Sun and Active Regions (Invited Review)

Solar radio emission provides valuable information on the structure and dynamics of the solar atmosphere above the temperature minimum. We review the background and most recent observational and theoretical results on the quiet Sun and active region studies, covering the entire radio range from millimeter to decameter wavelengths. We examine small- and large-scale structures, at short and long time scales, as well as synoptic aspects. Open questions and challenges for the future are also identified.     

Spatially Resolved Microwave Observations of Multiple Periodicities in a Flaring Loop

Quasi-periodic pulsations (QPPs) with at least three simultaneously existing spectral components with periods P≥30 s, P≈20 s, and about P≈10 s were detected during the decay phase of a solar flare on 3 July 2002, observed with the Nobeyama Radioheliograph (NoRH). A detailed study of the spatial structure of the Fourier amplitudes of QPPs along a flaring loop has revealed different spatial distributions of the three components. It is shown that the source of the QPPs with period P≥30 s has its maximum amplitude in the inner region of the loop, between the footpoints. QPPs with period P≈20 s are localized at the periphery of the loop, mainly in the outer parts of the footpoints. The spatial distribution of oscillations with period about P≈10 s contains three regions of high QPP amplitudes: two near the footpoints and one in the middle of the flaring region. It is shown that the observed properties of the spectral components are most accurately described by the fundamental, second, and third harmonics of the kink mode standing waves. This is the first identification of the kink mode in flare loops which is based on strict limitations derived from data on the spatial structure of a pulsating flare region.     

Detection of Periodic Oscillations in Sunspot-Associated Radio Sources

Using microwave observations made with the Nobeyama radioheliograph (=1.76 cm), we have studied temporal variations of sunspot-associated sources in the circularly polarized component. For all three cases of well-developed and rather stable sunspots we found nearly harmonic oscillations with periods in a range of 120–220 s. In one case of an unstable and quickly devolving active region, the fluctuations appear to be irregular with no dominant period. Sunspot-associated solar radio sources are known to be generated by cyclotron radiation of thermal electrons in magnetic tubes of sunspots at the level of the lower solar corona or chromosphere–corona transition region (CCTR). At the wavelength of 1.76 cm, the polarized emission arises in a layer where the magnetic field is B=2000 G (assuming the emission generated at the third harmonic of electron gyrofrequency). We suggest that the observed effect is a manifestation of the well-known 3-min oscillations observed in the chromosphere and photosphere above sunspots. The observed effects are believed to be a result of resonance oscillation of MHD waves inside a magnetic tube. Radio observations of this phenomenon open a new tool for studying regions of reflection of MHD waves near CCTR level. The method is very sensitive both to the height of the CCTR and magnetic fields above sunspots. Thus, detection of oscillations of the height of the transition region even with an amplitude of a few km are possible. The use of a spectrum of one of the observed sources obtained with the radio telescope RATAN-600 allows us to conclude that oscillations in magnetic field strength of about 4 G could be responsible for the effect and are reliably registered. The appearance of the famous 5-min oscillations in the solar atmosphere was also registered in some spectra of radio oscillations.