On the acceleration of solar-flare charged particles in a collapsing magnetic trap with an electric potential

We consider the kinetic problem of charged-particle acceleration in a magnetic trap with converging magnetic mirrors. We show that for a positive electrostatic potential of the trap plasma relative to the mirrors, the efficiency of confinement and acceleration increases for electrons and decreases for ions.     

Pair emission from bare magnetized strange stars

The dominant emission from bare strange stars is thought to be electron–positron pairs, produced through spontaneous pair creation (SPC) in a surface layer of electrons tied to the star by a superstrong electric field. The positrons escape freely, but the electrons are directed towards the star and quickly fill all available states, such that their degeneracy suppresses further SPC. An electron must be reflected and gain energy in order to escape, along with the positron. Each escaping electron leaves a hole that is immediately filled by another electron through SPC. We discuss the collisional processes that produce escaping electrons. When the Landau quantization of the motion perpendicular to the magnetic field is taken into account, electron–electron collisions can lead to an escaping electron only through a multistage process involving higher Landau levels. Although the available estimates of the collision rate are deficient in several ways, it appears that the rate is too low for electron–electron collisions to be effective. A simple kinetic model for electron–quark collisions leads to an estimate of the rate of pair production that is analogous to thermionic emission, but the work function is poorly determined.     

The Influence of Ion-Acoustic Turbulence on the Electron Acceleration in the Reconnecting Current Sheet

Through solving the single electron equation of motion and the Fokker-Planck equation including the terms of electric field strength and ion-acoustic turbulence, we study the influence of the ion-acoustic wave on the electron acceleration in turbulent reconnecting current sheets. It is shown that the ion-acoustic turbulence which causes plasma heating rather than particle acceleration should be considered. With typical parameter values, the acceleration time scale is around the order of 10^-6 s, the accelerated electrons may have approximately a power-law distribution in the energy range 20 ～100 keV and the spectral index is about 3～10, which is basically consistent with the observed hard X-ray spectra in solar flares.     

Water balance modelling in lateritic terrain

An analytical approximate model for unsaturated flow in a spatially variable field, coupled with infiltration and evapotranspiration at the upper boundary and a fluctuating water-table at the lower boundary, has been developed. The unsaturated flow equations depend on parameterizations of θ(Φ) and K(Φ). They are based on the notion of a moving, discontinuous front. The field heterogeneity refers to saturated hydraulic conductivity only. Horizontal variability is considered, and the flow medium is approximated as a set of uncorrelated, vertically homogeneous columns. Expectations and variances obtained with this approach have been compared with observations of the field hydrological processes. Three important aspects of the hydrology in this lateritic terrain are rapid water-table response, Hortonian surface runoff generation and soil suction variability. The stochastic conceptualization used explains to a high degree these characteristics, although some limitations are demonstrated.     

Electron surfing acceleration in oblique magnetic fields

Initially, inhomogeneous plasma jets, ejected by active galactic nuclei and associated with gamma-ray bursts, are thermalized by the formation of internal shocks. Jet subpopulations can hereby collide at Lorentz factors of a few. As the resulting relativistic shock expands into the upstream plasma, a significant fraction of the upstream ions is reflected. These ions, together with downstream ions that leak through the shock, form relativistic beams of ions that outrun the shock. The thermalization of these beams via the two-stream instability is thought to contribute significantly to plasma heating and particle acceleration by the shock. Here, the capability of a two-stream instability to generate relativistic field-aligned and cross-field electron flow, is examined for a magnetized plasma by means of a particle-in-cell (PIC) simulation. The electrons interact with the developing quasi-electrostatic waves and oblique magnetic fields. The simulation results bring forward evidence that such waves, by their non-linear interactions with the plasma, produce a highly relativistic field-aligned electron flow and electron energies, which could contribute to the radio synchrotron emissions from astrophysical jets, to ultrarelativistic leptonic subpopulations propagating with the jet and to the halo particles surrounding the accretion disc of the black hole.     

GAINS中重力传感器信息的扰动改正

重力辅助惯性导航系统GAINS(Gravity Aided Inertial Navigation System)是利用地球物理特征信息重力来完成水下运动载体的辅助惯性导航与定位.为实现重力匹配以校正惯性导航随时间累积的误差,首先必须对重力传感器输出信息进行扰动改正.分析了水下运动状态下重力传感器受到的各种重力扰动,如垂直扰动加速度、水平扰动加速度以及厄特弗斯效应影响所产生的原因,研究了扰动误差模型与INS导航精度之间的关系,并通过计算,提出了可直接以INS输出数据而无需其它外部有源导航信息进行扰动分离的方法.     

Efficient stochastic analysis of unsaturated slopes subjected to various rainfall intensities and patterns

Rainfall infiltration poses a disastrous threat to the slope stability in many regions around the world. This paper proposes an extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost)-based stochastic analysis framework to estimate the rainfall-induced slope failure probability. An unsaturated slope under rainfall infiltration in spatially varying soils is selected in this study to investigate the influences of the spatial variability of soil properties (including effective cohesion c′, effective friction angle φ′ and saturated hydraulic conductivity k_s), as well as rainfall intensity and rainfall pattern on the slope failure probability. Results show that the proposed framework in this study is capable of computing the failure probability with accuracy and high efficiency. The spatial variability of k_s cannot be overlooked in the reliability analysis. Otherwise, the rainfall-induced slope failure probability will be underestimated. It is found that the rainfall intensity and rainfall pattern have significant effect on the probability of failure. Moreover, the failure probabilities under various rainfall intensities and patterns can be easily obtained with the aid of the proposed framework, which can provide timely guidance for the landslide emergency management departments.     

随机Petri网在地震应急协同能力定量评价与动态分析中的应用

地震应急是一个复杂动态的过程,需要各部门协同配合方能高效开展应急工作。本文通过调研分析历史地震应急处置案例,提出了Ⅰ、Ⅱ级应急响应下多主体地震应急协同的一般流程,构建了相应的随机Petri网模型,并基于Petri网可能出现的状态集同构马尔科夫链,在计算各应急状态稳定概率的基础上,定量评价应急协同能力。同时,将应急过程中利用率高的变迁所对应的应急行为,作为应急处置的关键环节。通过调整各关键环节的应急速率,进一步对应急协同能力进行动态分析,进而提出有效提高应急协同联动能力的相关建议,为科学开展地震应急处置工作提供支持。