New Promise for Electron Bulk Energization in Solar Flares: Preferential Fermi Acceleration of Electrons over Protons in Reconnection-driven Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence

The hard X-ray luminosity of impulsive solar flares indicates that electrons in the low corona are bulk energized to energies of order 25 keV. LaRosa & Moore pointed out that the required bulk energization could be produced by cascading MHD turbulence generated by Alfvénic outflows from sites of strongly driven reconnection. LaRosa, Moore, & Shore proposed that the compressive component of the cascading turbulence dissipates into the electrons via Fermi acceleration. However, for this to be a viable electron bulk energization mechanism, the rate of proton energization by the same turbulence cannot exceed the electron energization rate. In this paper we estimate the relative efficiency of electron and proton Fermi acceleration in the compressive MHD turbulence expected in the reconnection outflows in impulsive solar flares. We find that the protons pose no threat to the electron energization. Particles extract energy from the MHD turbulence by mirroring on magnetic compressions moving along the magnetic field at the Alfvén speed. The mirroring rate, and hence the energization rate, is a sensitive function of the particle velocity distribution. In particular, there is a lower speed limit Vmin ≍ VA, below which the pitch-angle distribution of the particles is so highly collapsed to the magnetic field in the frame of the magnetic compressions that there is no mirroring and hence no Fermi acceleration. For coronal conditions, the proton thermal speed is much less than the Alfvén speed and proton Fermi acceleration is negligible. In contrast, nearly all of the electrons are super-Alfvénic, so their pitch-angle distribution is nearly isotropic in the frame of the magnetic compressions. Consequently, the electrons are so vigorously mirrored that they are Fermi accelerated to hard X-ray energies in a few tenths of a second by the magnetic compressions on scales of 105-103 cm in the cascading MHD turbulence. We conclude that dissipation of reconnection-generated MHD turbulence by electron Fermi acceleration plausibly accounts for the electron bulk energization in solar flares

Book Review: The Birth of Time: How Astronomers Measured the Age of the Universe

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of The Birth of Time : How Astronomers Measured the Age of the Universe by John Gribbin. Yale, 2000 237p, 0-300-08346-7 $22.50

The Discovery of a Lifetime: Gravitational-Waves

This presentation offers an insight to one of the biggest discoveries made in science. The discovery of gravitational-waves had been a long journey to achieve for physicists and scientist. Now gravitational-waves are helping scientists study the universe in a more efficient way never seen before. The discovery of gravitational-waves is a sign that a new era of astronomy and physics is about to open doors for many scientists and astrophysicists. ● Gravitational-waves are energycarrying waves propagating through a gravitational field, produced when a massive body is accelerated or otherwise disturbed. ● Gravitational-waves prove the existence of Black Holes. ● Laser Interferometer Gravitationalwave Observatories (LIGO), the detectors that can detect these ripples of spacetime. ● Laser Interferometer Space Antenna, the detector that will be sent up to space to detect gravitational-waves

Nonthermal Dark Matter from Early Matter Domination

Dark matter (DM) production in the early universe traditionally assumes a standard thermal history where the universe is in a radiation-dominated phase after the end of inflation until matter-radiation equality. However, the presence of additional scalar fields (which is a generic prediction of explicit string constructions) can lead to an epoch of early matter domination (EMD) that ends before the onset of big bang nucleosynthesis. Such an EMD phase has important cosmological consequences and renders thermal production of DM irrelevant. We present three scenarios for DM production involving an era of EMD: evaporation of primordial black holes into DM, DM freeze-out/in in the presence of two scalar fields, and production of PeV scale magnetic monopoles during EMD. These scenarios can reproduce the observed abundance of DM, and illustrate the diverse range of possible non-thermal mechanisms involving non-standard thermal histories

Book Review: The Big Bang: A View from the 21st Century

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of The Big Bang : a View from the 21st Century by David M. Harland. Springer/Praxis, 2003 262p, 1-85233-713-3 $39.95

Book Review: Finding the Big Bang

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of Finding the Big Bang edited by P. James E. Peebles, Lyman A. Page Jr., and R. Bruce Partridge Cambridge, 2009 571p, 9780521519823 $80.0

Book Review: The Road to Galaxy Formation 2nd Ed

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of The road to galaxy formation 2nd ed by William C. Keel. Springer/Praxis, 2007 262p, 9783540725343 $99.00

Monitoring AGNs with H-beta Asymmetry: Markarian 841

Quasars are among the most luminous objects in the Universe, and the mechanism behind their luminosity was shrouded in mystery decades after their discovery. Since then, we have found that these objects are active galactic nuclei (AGN), which are powered by actively-feeding super massive black holes at the center of a galaxy. But we still know fairly little about the structure and motion of the material surrounding active super massive black holes, and most of these objects are not resolvable by conventional observations. We use a technique called reverberation mapping, which is traditionally used only as a mass determination method, to probe the structure and kinematics of dozens of AGN. Reverberation mapping uses the time lag between a change in continuum flux and a change in emission line flux to gauge the size of the broad line region (based on light travel time). We combine that size with the emitting material’s spread in velocity (measured from the width of the emission line) to determine the mass of the super massive black hole. We then repeat that process for sections of the emission line with equal flux, producing a velocity-resolved time delay graph, which we can analyze to visualize how material around the black hole moves. I present detailed analysis for the object Markarian 841

Book Review: Heart of Darkness: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Invisible Universe

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of Heart of Darkness : Unraveling the Mysteries of the Invisible Universe by Jeremiah P. Ostriker and Simon Mitton Princeton, 2013 299p, 9780691134307 $27.95, 9781400844647$27.9

Book Review: Cosmic Dawn: The Search for the First Stars and Galaxies

This document is Dr. Oswalt’s review of Cosmic Dawn : the Search for the First Stars and Galaxies by George Rhee, springer, 2013. 279p, 9781461478126 $39.99, 9781461478133$29.99