Carbonaceous aerosol transport from the Indo-Gangetic Plain to the Himalayas: Carbon isotope evidence and light absorption characteristics

The Indo-Gangetic Plain (IGP) is a major regional and global emitter of atmospheric pollutants, which adversely affect surrounding areas such as the Himalayas. We present a comprehensive dataset on carbonaceous aerosol (CA) composition, radiocarbon (Δ¹⁴C) -based source apportionment, and light absorption of total suspended particle (TSP) samples collected over a 3-year period from high-altitude Jomsom in the central Himalayas. The 3-year mean TSP, organic carbon (OC), and elemental carbon (EC) concentrations were 92.0 ± 28.6, 9.74 ± 6.31, and 2.02 ± 1.35 μg m^?3, respectively, with the highest concentrations observed during the pre-monsoon season, followed by the post-monsoon, winter, and monsoon seasons. The Δ¹⁴C analysis revealed that the contribution of fossil fuel combustion (f_fossil) to EC was 47.9% ± 11.5%, which is consistent with observations in urban and remote regions in South Asia and attests that EC likely arrives in Jomsom from upwind IGP sources via long-range transport. In addition, the lowest f_fossil (38.7% ± 13.3%) was observed in winter, indicating large contributions in this season from local biomass burning. The mass absorption cross-section of EC (MAC_EC: 8.27 ± 1.76 m²/g) and water-soluble organic carbon (MAC_WSOC: 0.98 ± 0.45 m²/g) were slightly higher and lower than those reported in urban regions, respectively, indicating that CA undergo an aging process. Organic aerosol coating during transport and variation of biomass burning probably led to the seasonal variation in MAC of two components. Overall, WSOC contributed considerably to the light absorption (11.1% ± 4.23%) of EC. The findings suggest that to protect glaciers of the Himalayas from pollution-related melting, it is essential to mitigate emissions from the IGP.     

Primordial non-Gaussianities in the intergalactic medium

We present results from the first high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations of non-Gaussian cosmological models. We focus on the statistical properties of the transmitted Lyman-α flux in the high-redshift intergalactic medium. Imprints of non-Gaussianity are present and are larger at high redshifts. Differences larger than 20 per cent at   z > 3  in the flux probability distribution function for high-transmissivity regions (voids) are expected for values of the non-linearity parameter   f _NL=±100  when compared to a standard Λ cold dark matter cosmology with   f _NL= 0  . We also investigate the one-dimensional flux bispectrum: at the largest scales (corresponding to tens of Mpc), we expect deviations in the flux bispectrum up to 20 per cent at   z ∼ 4  (for   f _NL=±100  ), significantly larger than deviations of ∼3 per cent in the flux power spectrum. We briefly discuss possible systematic errors that can contaminate the signal. Although challenging, a detection of non-Gaussianities in the interesting regime of scales and redshifts probed by the Lyman-α forest could be possible with future data sets.     

The evolution of the Lyα forest effective optical depth following He ii reionization

Three independent observational studies have now detected a narrow  (Δ z ≃ 0.5)  dip centred at   z = 3.2  in the otherwise smooth redshift evolution of the Lyα forest effective optical depth. This feature has previously been interpreted as an indirect signature of rapid photoheating in the intergalactic medium (IGM) during the epoch of He  ii reionization. We examine this interpretation using a semi-analytic model of inhomogeneous He  ii reionization and high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations of the Lyα forest. We instead find that a rapid  (Δ z ≃ 0.2)  boost to the IGM temperature  (Δ T ≃ 10⁴ K)  beginning at   z = 3.4  produces a well understood and generic evolution in the Lyα effective optical depth, where a sudden reduction in the opacity is followed by a gradual, monotonic recovery driven largely by adiabatic cooling in the low-density IGM. This behaviour is inconsistent with the narrow feature in the observational data. If photoheating during He  ii reionization is instead extended over several redshift units, as recent theoretical studies suggest, then the Lyα opacity will evolve smoothly with redshift. We conclude that the sharp dip observed in the Lyα forest effective optical depth is instead most likely due to a narrow peak in the hydrogen photoionization rate around   z = 3.2  , and suggest that it may arise from the modulation of either reprocessed radiation during He  ii reionization, or the opacity of Lyman limit systems.     

Classifying broad absorption line quasars: metrics, issues and a new catalogue constructed from SDSS DR5

We apply a recently developed method for classifying broad absorption line quasars (BALQSOs) to the latest quasi-stellar object (QSO) catalogue constructed from Data Release 5 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Our new hybrid classification scheme combines the power of simple metrics, supervised neural networks and visual inspection. In our view, the resulting BALQSO catalogue is both more complete and more robust than all previous BALQSO catalogues, containing 3552 sources selected from a parent sample of 28 421 QSOs in the redshift range  1.7 < z < 4.2  . This equates to a raw BALQSO fraction of 12.5 per cent.
In the process of constructing a robust catalogue, we shed light on the main problems encountered when dealing with BALQSO classification, many of which arise due to the lack of a proper physical definition of what constitutes a BAL. This introduces some subjectivity in what is meant by the term BALQSO, and because of this, we also provide all of the meta-data used in constructing our catalogue, for every object in the parent QSO sample. This makes it easy to quickly isolate and explore subsamples constructed with different metrics and techniques. By constructing composite QSO spectra from subsamples classified according to the meta-data, we show that no single existing metric produces clean and robust BALQSO classifications. Rather, we demonstrate that a variety of complementary metrics are required at the moment to accomplish this task. Along the way, we confirm the finding that BALQSOs are redder than non-BALQSOs and that the raw BALQSO fraction displays an apparent trend with signal-to-noise ratio steadily increasing from 9 per cent in low signal-to-noise ratio data up to 15 per cent.     

太阳射电尖峰爆与电子回旋共振吸收

本文采用等离子体动力学方法，研究了日冕条件下磁化非相对论热等离子体对太阳射电辐射产生的电子回旋共振吸收，并在辐射频率等于电子回旋谐波频率时求得ｎ≥２谐波吸收率的近似表示式，以及其对等离子体温度，出射角度和谐波数的变化规律，在应用部分，讨论了电子回旋共振吸收对于太阳射电尖峰爆发的影响，认为目前观测到的尖峰爆，大多数高能电子束来自日冕的内层。     

The ultraviolet reflectance of Enceladus: Implications for surface composition

The reflectance of Saturn’s moon Enceladus has been measured at far ultraviolet (FUV) wavelengths (115-190 nm) by Cassini’s Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrograph (UVIS). At visible and near infrared (VNIR) wavelengths Enceladus’ reflectance spectrum is very bright, consistent with a surface composed primarily of H₂O ice. At FUV wavelengths, however, Enceladus is surprisingly dark - darker than would be expected for pure water ice. Previous analyses have focused on the VNIR spectrum, comparing it to pure water ice (Cruikshank, D.P., Owen, T.C., Dalle Ore, C., Geballe, T.R., Roush, T.L., de Bergh, C., Sandford, S.A., Poulet, F., Benedix, G.K., Emery, J.P. [2005] Icarus, 175, 268-283) or pure water ice plus a small amount of NH₃ (Emery, J.P., Burr, D.M., Cruikshank, D.P., Brown, R.H., Dalton, J.B. [2005] Astron. Astrophys., 435, 353-362) or NH₃ hydrate (Verbiscer, A.J., Peterson, D.E., Skrutskie, M.F., Cushing, M., Helfenstein, P., Nelson, M.J., Smith, J.D., Wilson, J.C. [2006] Icarus, 182, 211-223). We compare Enceladus’ FUV spectrum to existing laboratory measurements of the reflectance spectra of candidate species, and to spectral models. We find that the low FUV reflectance of Enceladus can be explained by the presence of a small amount of NH₃ and a small amount of a tholin in addition to H₂O ice on the surface. The presence of these three species (H₂O, NH₃, and a tholin) appears to satisfy not only the low FUV reflectance and spectral shape, but also the middle-ultraviolet to visible wavelength brightness and spectral shape. We expect that ammonia in the Enceladus plume is transported across the surface to provide a global coating.     

Ultraviolet dust aerosol properties as observed by MARCI

Observations by the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) on board the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) in two ultraviolet (UV, Bands 6 and 7; 258 nm, and 320 nm, respectively) and one visible (Band 1, 436 nm) channels of the 2007 planet encircling dust storm are combined with those made by the two Mars Exploration Rovers (MERs) to better characterize the single scattering albedo (ω₀) of martian dust aerosols. Exploiting the low contrast of the surface in the UV (and blue) as well as the reduced importance of surface reflectance under very dusty conditions, we utilize the sampling of photometric angles by the MARCI cross-track geometry to synthesize an analog of the classical Emergence Phase Function (EPF). This so-called “pseudo-EPF”, used in conjunction with the “ground-truth” measurements provided by the MERs, is able to effectively isolate the effects of the dust ω₀. The motivation for this approach is the elimination of a significant portion of the type of uncertainty involved in many previous radiative transfer analyses. Furthermore, we produce a self-consistent set of complex refractive indices (m=n+ik) through our use of an explicit microphysical representation of the aerosol scattering properties. Because of uncertainty in the exact size of the dust particles during the epoch of the observations, we consider two effective particle radii (r_eff) to cover the range anticipated from the literature: 1.6 and 1.8 μm. The resulting set of model-data comparisons, ω₀, and m are presented along with an assessment of potential sources of error and uncertainty. Analysis of the Band 1 results is limited to ω₀ as a “proof-of-concept” for our approach through a comparison to contemporaneous CRISM EPF results at 440 nm. The derived ω₀ are: assuming , and 0.765, for Bands 6, 7, and 1, respectively; for , for the same band order. For either r_eff case, the total estimated error is 0.022, 0.019, and 0.010, again for Bands 6, 7, and 1. We briefly discuss our retrievals, including the asymmetry parameter (g) associated with our model phase functions, within the context of previous efforts, with an emphasis on the improved precision of our results compared to those in the literature. We also suggest several applications of our results, including an extension of the dust climatological record using MARCI Band 7 pseudo-EPFs outside of 2007 global dust event. Initial work on this particular application using a sample of 135 pseudo-EPFs near the MERs suggests that optical depth retrievals with a precision in the range 0.2-0.4 may be possible under moderate loading conditions (i.e., τ < 1.5).