敦煌地区春季大气气溶胶粒子数浓度的分析

利用2002年春季在敦煌地区戈壁沙漠和绿洲农田观测的大气气溶胶粒子数浓度资料, 分析了它与沙尘天气的关系、谱分布特征以及两种地表下粒子数浓度的差异.结果表明, 不同天气条件下的大气气溶胶粒子数浓度有着不同的特征.在背景天气下, 敦煌地区的大气气溶胶粒子数浓度通常在104L-1以下, 其中以直径在0.5～1.0 μm之间的极细颗粒为主, 绿洲农田细粒子(直径＜3.0 μm)的数浓度高于戈壁沙漠, 而较粗粒子(直径＞3.0 μm)则相反.当沙尘天气发生时, 该地区的大气气溶胶粒子数浓度增大到105 L-1以上, 直径在1.0～3.0 μm之间的细粒子变为其主要成分, 戈壁沙漠4档的粒子数浓度均高于绿洲农田, 3.0 μm以上的较粗粒子两地的差异更大.     

Kolmogorov dissipation scales in weakly ionized plasmas

In a weakly ionized plasma, the evolution of the magnetic field is described by a 'generalized Ohm's law' that includes the Hall effect and the ambipolar diffusion terms. These terms introduce additional spatial and time-scales which play a decisive role in the cascading and the dissipation mechanisms in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. We determine the Kolmogorov dissipation scales for the viscous, the resistive and the ambipolar dissipation mechanisms. The plasma, depending on its properties and the energy injection rate, may preferentially select one of these dissipation scales, thus determining the shortest spatial scale of the supposedly self-similar spectral distribution of the magnetic field. The results are illustrated taking the partially ionized part of the solar atmosphere as an example. Thus, the shortest spatial scale of the supposedly self-similar spectral distribution of the solar magnetic field is determined by any of the four dissipation scales given by the viscosity, the Spitzer resistivity (electron–ion collisions), the resistivity due to electron–neutral collisions and the ambipolar diffusivity. It is found that the ambipolar diffusion dominates for reasonably large energy injection rate. The robustness of the magnetic helicity in the partially ionized solar atmosphere would facilitate the formation of self-organized vortical structures.     

Non-ideal evolution of non-axisymmetric, force-free magnetic fields in a magnetar

Recent numerical magnetohydrodynamic calculations by Braithwaite and collaborators support the 'fossil field' hypothesis regarding the origin of magnetic fields in compact stars and suggest that the resistive evolution of the fossil field can explain the reorganization and decay of magnetar magnetic fields. Here, these findings are modelled analytically by allowing the stellar magnetic field to relax through a quasi-static sequence of non-axisymmetric, force-free states, by analogy with spheromak relaxation experiments, starting from a random field. Under the hypothesis that the force-free modes approach energy equipartition in the absence of resistivity, the output of the numerical calculations is semiquantitatively recovered: the field settles down to a linked poloidal–toroidal configuration, which inflates and becomes more toroidal as time passes. A qualitatively similar (but not identical) end state is reached if the magnetic field evolves by exchanging helicity between small and large scales according to an α-dynamo-like, mean-field mechanism, arising from the fluctuating electromotive force produced by the initial random field. The impossibility of matching a force-free internal field to a potential exterior field is discussed in the magnetar context.     

Electrostatic dust-cyclotron waves in plasmas with opposite polarity grains

The dispersion relation is derived for electrostatic dust-cyclotron (EDC) waves in a collisional plasma with dust grains having both positive and negative charges. The critical electric fields for excitation of two EDC modes in such a plasma are numerically calculated for a laboratory-type plasma.     

Connecting the very large and the very small: effective particle mass in curved-space cosmological models

We investigate the propagation of electromagnetic fields and potentials in the plasma of the early Universe, assuming a Friedmann–Robertson–Walker background with negative curvature. Taking over results from classical plasma physics, we show that charged particles will acquire an effective mass that has not only the expected thermal component but also a non-thermal component due to the influence of distant matter. Although this is a direct effect of the vector potential, we show the theory is nevertheless gauge invariant. This phenomenon is therefore in the same category as the Aharonov–Bohm effect. The non-thermal component becomes increasingly important with time, and in some cosmological models can prove to be of decisive importance in bringing about the phase transition that generates normal masses.