Evolution of emerging force-free flux tube to be a flare loop

Solar Physics - Evolution of a filamentary magnetic flux tube emerging from the photosphere is investigated in the assumption that the magnetic field is force-free and unchanged during the...     

Field-aligned electric field caused by the decay of force-free magnetic field and particle acceleration

Numerical simulation for the dynamics of a coronal filamentary magnetic loop has been made under the assumption that the field is initially force-free and an electric resistivity suddenly increases at a given moment due to an appearance of ion sound waves, which can be excited due to a high current density if a characteristic radius r ₀ of the magnetic loop is about 3 km or less in a magnetic field B ₀ of 1000 G. During the resistive decay of the magnetic field a strong field-aligned electric field is created and maintained for a sufficient time to acceleratie both electrons and protons to a high energy, which is proportional to B ₀/r ₀ and can be 100 MeV if r ₀ = 10 km and B ₀ = 1000 G. If the coronal magnetic tube is composed of many such filamentary loops, the total number of accelerated electrons is consistent with the observations.     

Numerical simulation of type III solar radio bursts caused by high-density electron beam

Numerical simulation for the type III solar radio bursts in meter wavelengths was made with the electron beam of a high number density enough to emit fundamental radio waves comparable in intensity with the second harmonic.This requirement is fulfilled if the optical thickness ₁ for the negative absorption (amplification) becomes -23 to -25. Since ₁ is roughly proportional to the time-integral of the electron flux of the beam, the intensity of the fundamental waves depends strongly on the parameters which determine the electron flux. Therefore, it is most unlikely that the harmonic pairs of type III bursts of the first and the second harmonics occur frequently with comparable intensities in a wide frequency range, say 200 MHz to 20 MHz, if we take the working hypothesis that the fundamental waves are caused by the scattering of electron plasma waves by thermal ions and amplified during the propagation along the beam.However, we cannot rule out the possibility that single type III bursts with short durations or group of such bursts are the fundamental waves emitted by the above mechanism, but only if the observed large size of the radio source can be attributed to the radio scattering alone.     

A large arcade along the inversion line,observed on May 19, 1992 by Yohkoh,and enhancement of interplanetary energetic particles

A large arcade associated with a long-duration soft X-ray emission was observed on May 19, 1992 by the Yohkoh soft X-ray telescope. This large arcade was formed along the inversion line and a filament eruption was observed as part of this event. Also associated with this event were solar energetic particles and an interplanetary shock observed near Earth. This event supports the idea that coronal mass ejections are large-scale eruptions along an inversion line, or a heliospheric current sheet. However, this event implies that present models on eruptions are not sufficient.     

Separation of periodic, chaotic, and random components in solar activity

Two new techniques were applied to search for chaotic behavior in solar activity. A mixture of periodic and chaotic components in a time series makes it difficult to find chaotic behavior. The singular spectrum analysis (SSA) method (Broomhead and King, 1986) was used to separate periodic and irregular components in solar activity (e.g., sunspot number and 10.7 cm flux). The nonlinear prediction method (Sugihara and May, 1990) was applied for each component to examine whether it has a chaotic characteristic. The result suggests that are are dominant periodic components and highly irregular (random) components in solar activity.     

On “A model of impulsive loop flares revisited” by Smith and Brecht

A criticism of my papers was recently presented by Smith and Brecht, that the electron distribution resulting from anomalous heat conduction is not unstable for electron plasma waves. The aim of the present letter is to show that their criticism is irrelevant.     

Time profile of type III bursts

On the hypothesis that the time profile of a type III burst corresponds directly to the flux of electron beam, the similarity of time profile is shown to be maintained even if the electron velocity decreases with distance provided that the time is normalized to unity at the time of maximum flux. The observed time profiles of type III bursts with simple shape seem to follow the similarity law in almost all frequency range. This evidence may indicate that the time profile, both the rising and decaying phases, of a type III burst should be attributed to a common origin, e.g., the time variation of exciter determined by the initial velocity distribution in the electron beam, instead of attributing the rising time to the beam length and the decay time to the damping of plasma waves after the passage of the electron beam.     

Numerical simulation of type III solar radio bursts on meter- and hectometer-waves

Numerical simulation of type III bursts is made by the use of fully numerical scheme showing a general rule for obtaining a numerically stable difference scheme. Although the electron distribution function is one-dimensional in velocity space, the plasma waves is cylindrically symmetric two-dimensional in K-space.It is confirmed that the previous simulation made by the use of semi-analytical method assuming the plateau distribution of electron distribution is qualitatively correct, but the number density of electron beam to have a typical type III burst was overestimated by a factor of about 3.It is demonstrated that a tentative neglection of a term for the induced scattering of plasma waves into nonresonant K-range gives no remarkable effect on the energy loss of the electron beam, though the scattering is strong. The reason is that the scattering reduces the saturation level of plasma waves resulting in a reduction of the energy loss, while a part of the energy of electron beam is indirectly lost by the scattering.     

A hybrid approach for deriving horizontal site amplification factors considering both the similarity of HVSRE and the vertical amplification correction function

Under hypothetical and idealized conditions, the horizontal site amplification factor (HSAF) is defined as the ratio of the horizontal Fourier amplitude spectrum (FAS) at a point on the Earth's surface with respect to the horizontal FAS at the identical location but on the outcropping seismological bedrock. The HSAF reflects the profile of local sedimentary soils and weathered rock formations, indicating site effects. In most cases, such an idealized HSAF is difficult to measure directly. Thus, quantitatively estimating a HSAF value is a crucial task in strong-motion prediction over the last century. Fortunately, many strong-motion stations have been constructed throughout Japan, facilitating the characterization of HSAFs down to seismological bedrock at more than 1600 observational sites by the generalized inversion technique (GIT). First, this study reported the similarity distribution of the HSAF and the horizontal-to-vertical spectral ratio of earthquakes (HVSR_E). Subsequently, we proposed a hybrid method from a novel aspect for estimating HSAF in terms of the observed similarity distribution and the vertical amplification correction function (VACF) proposed previously. Compared with the direct use of HVSR_E for substituting HSAF, the hybrid method proposed herein demonstrated an improvement of greater than 30% in terms of the residuals between estimated HSAFs and those separated from observations.     

Temporal dynamics of dissolved organic carbon (DOC) produced in a microcosm with red tide forming algae <Emphasis Type="Italic">Chattonella marina</Emphasis> and its associated bacteria

Acute and severe hypoxia associated with harmful algal bloom has become one of the major causes for the environmental deterioration of coastal areas. Although it is generally thought that a large part of the dissolved oxygen consumption at a bloom site is initiated by heterotrophic bacteria that attack organic matter derived from dead or dying algal cells, precise microbial processes leading to the hypoxia are yet to be examined. Here we show temporal dynamics of extracellular dissolved organic carbon (DOC) of the red tide forming raphidophyte Chattonella marina and bacterial populations associating with the algae under laboratory conditions. During the growth of non-axenic strains of C. marina, we monitored abundance of algae, associated bacteria, and DOC in the culture media. Bacterial cell abundance increased in response to the increase in DOC both at the beginning and the late log phase of the algal growth. Flow cytometric analysis revealed that transient increase in the percentage of respiratory-active bacterial cells also coincided with the timing of the increase in bacterial abundance and DOC. These results strongly suggest that DOC released from growing C. marina fuels respiration and growth of planktonic bacteria surrounding the algae. This has implications for the role of DOC released from C. marina bloom before the collapse in mediating interactions between neighboring algae and bacterial assemblage which may eventually lead to algal bloom-associated hypoxia.