491 research outputs found
Visceral Fat Accumulation Is Associated With Circadian Blood Pressure in Japanese Patients With Impaired Glucose Tolerance
Differences between Doppler velocities of ions and neutral atoms in a solar prominence
This is the author accepted manuscript. The final version is available from EDP Sciences via the DOI in this record.Context. In astrophysical systems with partially ionized plasma the motion of ions is governed by the magnetic field while the neutral
particles can only feel the magnetic field’s Lorentz force indirectly through collisions with ions. The drift in the velocity between
ionized and neutral species plays a key role in modifying important physical processes like magnetic reconnection, damping of
magnetohydrodynamic waves, transport of angular momentum in plasma through the magnetic field, and heating.
Aims. This paper investigates the differences between Doppler velocities of calcium ions and neutral hydrogen in a solar prominence
to look for velocity differences between the neutral and ionized species.
Methods. We simultaneously observed spectra of a prominence over an active region in H I 397 nm, H I 434 nm, Ca II 397 nm, and
Ca II 854 nm using a high dispersion spectrograph of the Domeless Solar Telescope at Hida observatory, and compared the Doppler
velocities, derived from the shift of the peak of the spectral lines presumably emitted from optically-thin plasma.
Results. There are instances when the difference in velocities between neutral atoms and ions is significant, e.g. 1433 events (∼ 3 %
of sets of compared profiles) with a difference in velocity between neutral hydrogen atoms and calcium ions greater than 3σ of the
measurement error. However, we also found significant differences between the Doppler velocities of two spectral lines emitted from
the same species, and the probability density functions of velocity difference between the same species is not significantly different
from those between neutral atoms and ions.
Conclusions. We interpreted the difference of Doppler velocities as a result of motions of different components in the prominence
along the line of sight, rather than the decoupling of neutral atoms from plasma.This work was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Scientific
Research (No. 22244013, P.I. K. Ichimoto; No. 15K17609, P.I. T. Anan; No.
16H01177, P.I. T. Anan) from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science
and Technology of Japan. A.H. is supported by his STFC Emest Rutherford
Fellowship grant number ST/L00397X/2
Chromospheric polarimetry through multi-line observations of the 850 nm spectral region
Future solar missions and ground-based telescopes aim to understand the
magnetism of the solar chromosphere. We performed a supporting study in
Quintero Noda et al. (2016) focused on the infrared Ca II 8542 A line and we
concluded that is one of the best candidates because it is sensitive to a large
range of atmospheric heights, from the photosphere to the middle chromosphere.
However, we believe that it is worth to try improving the results produced by
this line observing additional spectral lines. In that regard, we examined the
neighbour solar spectrum looking for spectral lines that could increase the
sensitivity to the atmospheric parameters. Interestingly, we discovered several
photospheric lines that greatly improve the photospheric sensitivity to the
magnetic field vector. Moreover, they are located close to a second
chromospheric line that also belongs to the Ca II infrared triplet, i.e. the Ca
II 8498 A line, and enhances the sensitivity to the atmospheric parameters at
chromospheric layers. We conclude that the lines in the vicinity of the Ca II
8542 A line not only increase its sensitivity to the atmospheric parameters at
all layers, but also they constitute an excellent spectral window for
chromospheric polarimetry.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl
Solar polarimetry through the K I lines at 770 nm
We characterize the K I D1 & D2 lines in order to determine whether they
could complement the 850 nm window, containing the Ca II infrared triplet lines
and several Zeeman sensitive photospheric lines, that was studied previously.
We investigate the effect of partial redistribution on the intensity profiles,
their sensitivity to changes in different atmospheric parameters, and the
spatial distribution of Zeeman polarization signals employing a realistic
magnetohydrodynamic simulation. The results show that these lines form in the
upper photosphere at around 500 km and that they are sensitive to the line of
sight velocity and magnetic field strength at heights where neither the
photospheric lines nor the Ca II infrared lines are. However, at the same time,
we found that their sensitivity to the temperature essentially comes from the
photosphere. Then, we conclude that the K I lines provide a complement to the
lines in the 850 nm window for the determination of atmospheric parameters in
the upper photosphere, especially for the line of sight velocity and the
magnetic field.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, main journal publicatio
Study of the polarization produced by the Zeeman effect in the solar Mg I b lines
The next generation of solar observatories aim to understand the magnetism of
the solar chromosphere. Therefore, it is crucial to understand the polarimetric
signatures of chromospheric spectral lines. For this purpose, we here examine
the suitability of the three Fraunhofer Mg I b1, b2, and b4 lines at 5183.6,
5172.7, and 5167.3 A, respectively. We start by describing a simplified atomic
model of only 6 levels and 3 line transitions for computing the atomic
populations of the 3p-4s (multiplet number 2) levels involved in the Mg I b
line transitions assuming non-local thermodynamic conditions and considering
only the Zeeman effect using the field-free approximation. We test this
simplified atom against more complex ones finding that, although there are
differences in the computed profiles, they are small compared with the
advantages provided by the simple atom in terms of speed and robustness. After
comparing the three Mg I lines, we conclude that the most capable one is the b2
line as b1 forms at similar heights and always show weaker polarization signals
while b4 is severely blended with photospheric lines. We also compare Mg I b2
with the K I D1 and Ca II 8542 A lines finding that the former is sensitive to
the atmospheric parameters at heights that are in between those covered by the
latter two lines. This makes Mg I b2 an excellent candidate for future
multi-line observations that aim to seamlessly infer the thermal and magnetic
properties of different features in the lower solar atmosphere.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figures, and 5 table
Chromospheric polarimetry through multi-line observations of the 850 nm spectral region II: A magnetic flux tube scenario
In this publication we continue the work started in Quintero Noda et al.
(2017) examining this time a numerical simulation of a magnetic flux tube
concentration. Our goal is to study if the physical phenomena that take place
in it, in particular, the magnetic pumping, leaves a specific imprint on the
examined spectral lines. We find that the profiles from the interior of the
flux tube are periodically dopplershifted following an oscillation pattern that
is also reflected in the amplitude of the circular polarization signals. In
addition, we analyse the properties of the Stokes profiles at the edges of the
flux tube discovering the presence of linear polarization signals for the Ca II
lines, although they are weak with an amplitude around 0.5% of the continuum
intensity. Finally, we compute the response functions to perturbations in the
longitudinal field and we estimate the field strength using the weak field
approximation. Our results indicate that the height of formation of the
spectral lines changes during the magnetic pumping process which makes the
interpretation of the inferred magnetic field strength and its evolution more
difficult. These results complement those from previous works demonstrating the
capabilities and limitations of the 850 nm spectrum for chromospheric Zeeman
polarimetry in a very dynamic and complex atmosphere.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures, 0 tables, MNRAS main journal publicatio
Chromospheric polarimetry through multi-line observations of the 850 nm spectral region III: Chromospheric jets driven by twisted magnetic fields
We investigate the diagnostic potential of the spectral lines at 850 nm for
understanding the magnetism of the lower atmosphere. For that purpose, we use a
newly developed 3D simulation of a chromospheric jet to check the sensitivity
of the spectral lines to this phenomenon as well as our ability to infer the
atmospheric information through spectropolarimetric inversions of noisy
synthetic data. We start comparing the benefits of inverting the entire
spectrum at 850 nm versus only the Ca II 8542 A spectral line. We found a
better match of the input atmosphere for the former case, mainly at lower
heights. However, the results at higher layers were not accurate. After several
tests, we determined that we need to weight more the chromospheric lines than
the photospheric ones in the computation of the goodness of the fit. The new
inversion configuration allows us to obtain better fits and consequently more
accurate physical parameters. Therefore, to extract the most from multi-line
inversions, a proper set of weights needs to be estimated. Besides that, we
conclude again that the lines at 850 nm, or a similar arrangement with Ca II
8542 A plus Zeeman sensitive photospheric lines, poses the best observing
configuration for examining the thermal and magnetic properties of the lower
solar atmosphere.Comment: 14 pages, 11 figure
Increasing the Fine Structure Visibility of the Hinode SOT Ca II H Filtergrams
We present the improved so-called Madmax (OMC) operator selecting maxima of
convexities computed in multiple directions around each pixel rewritten in
MatLab and shown to be very efficient for pattern recognition.
The aim of the algorithm is to trace the bright hair-like features (for ex.
chromospheric thin jets or spicules) of solar ultimate observations polluted by
a noise of different origins. This popular spatial operator uses the second
derivative in the optimally selected direction for which its absolute value has
a maximum value. Accordingly, it uses the positivity of the resulting intensity
signal affected by a superposed noise. The results are illustrated using a test
artificially generated image and real SOT (Hinode) images are also used, to
make your own choice of the sensitive parameters to use in improving the
visibility of images.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figurs, submitted in Solar Physic
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