94 research outputs found
Computer-aided design of Organophosphorus inhibitors of Urease
Based on the structure of the most potential inhibitor diamidophosphate, various novel groups of inhibitors were developed by knowledge-based design approach with covalent carbon-phosphorus or carbon-phosphorus-carbon bond to improve hydrolytic stability to inhibit the microbial ureases. Designed compounds were evaluated with 10 (LigScore1, LigScore2, PLP1, PLP2, JAIN, PMF, PMF04, LUDI_1, LUDI_2 and LUDI_3) different scoring functions implemented in Discovery Studio and conformation analysis by AutoDock package
The Influence of Solar Flares on the Lower Solar Atmosphere: Evidence from the Na D Absorption Line Measured by GOLF/SOHO
Solar flares presumably have an impact on the deepest layers of the solar
atmosphere and yet the observational evidence for such an impact is scarce.
Using ten years of measurements of the Na D and Na D Fraunhofer
lines, measured by GOLF onboard SOHO, we show that this photospheric line is
indeed affected by flares. The effect of individual flares is hidden by solar
oscillations, but a statistical analysis based on conditional averaging reveals
a clear signature. Although GOLF can only probe one single wavelength at a
time, we show that both wings of the Na line can nevertheless be compared. The
varying line asymmetry can be interpreted as an upward plasma motion from the
lower solar atmosphere during the peak of the flare, followed by a downward
motion.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure
Svestka's Research: Then and Now
Zdenek Svestka's research work influenced many fields of solar physics,
especially in the area of flare research. In this article I take five of the
areas that particularly interested him and assess them in a "then and now"
style. His insights in each case were quite sound, although of course in the
modern era we have learned things that he could not readily have envisioned.
His own views about his research life have been published recently in this
journal, to which he contributed so much, and his memoir contains much
additional scientific and personal information (Svestka, 2010).Comment: Invited review for "Solar and Stellar Flares," a conference in honour
of Prof. Zden\v{e}k \v{S}vestka, Prague, June 23-27, 2014. This is a
contribution to a Topical Issue in Solar Physics, based on the presentations
at this meeting (Editors Lyndsay Fletcher and Petr Heinzel
Multiwavelength studies of MHD waves in the solar chromosphere: An overview of recent results
The chromosphere is a thin layer of the solar atmosphere that bridges the
relatively cool photosphere and the intensely heated transition region and
corona. Compressible and incompressible waves propagating through the
chromosphere can supply significant amounts of energy to the interface region
and corona. In recent years an abundance of high-resolution observations from
state-of-the-art facilities have provided new and exciting ways of
disentangling the characteristics of oscillatory phenomena propagating through
the dynamic chromosphere. Coupled with rapid advancements in
magnetohydrodynamic wave theory, we are now in an ideal position to thoroughly
investigate the role waves play in supplying energy to sustain chromospheric
and coronal heating. Here, we review the recent progress made in
characterising, categorising and interpreting oscillations manifesting in the
solar chromosphere, with an impetus placed on their intrinsic energetics.Comment: 48 pages, 25 figures, accepted into Space Science Review
Coronal Heating Rate in the Slow Solar Wind
This Letter reports the first observational estimate of the heating rate in the slowly expanding solar corona. The analysis exploits the simultaneous remote and local observations of the same coronal plasma volume, with the Solar Orbiter/Metis and the Parker Solar Probe instruments, respectively, and relies on the basic solar wind magnetohydrodynamic equations. As expected, energy losses are a minor fraction of the solar wind energy flux, since most of the energy dissipation that feeds the heating and acceleration of the coronal flow occurs much closer to the Sun than the heights probed in the present study, which range from 6.3 to 13.3 R & ODOT;. The energy deposited to the supersonic wind is then used to explain the observed slight residual wind acceleration and to maintain the plasma in a nonadiabatic state. As derived in the Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin limit, the present energy transfer rate estimates provide a lower limit, which can be very useful in refining the turbulence-based modeling of coronal heating and subsequent solar wind acceleration
First light observations of the solar wind in the outer corona with the Metis coronagraph
In this work, we present an investigation of the wind in the solar corona that has been initiated by observations of the resonantly scattered ultraviolet emission of the coronal plasma obtained with UVCS-SOHO, designed to measure the wind outflow speed by applying Doppler dimming diagnostics. Metis on Solar Orbiter complements the UVCS spectroscopic observations that were performed during solar activity cycle 23 by simultaneously imaging the polarized visible light and the H?» I Lyman-α corona in order to obtain high spatial and temporal resolution maps of the outward velocity of the continuously expanding solar atmosphere. The Metis observations, taken on May 15, 2020, provide the first HI Lyman-α images of the extended corona and the first instantaneous map of the speed of the coronal plasma outflows during the minimum of solar activity and allow us to identify the layer where the slow wind flow is observed. The polarized visible light (580-640 nm) and the ultraviolet HI Lyα (121.6 nm) coronal emissions, obtained with the two Metis channels, were combined in order to measure the dimming of the UV emission relative to a static corona. This effect is caused by the outward motion of the coronal plasma along the direction of incidence of the chromospheric photons on the coronal neutral hydrogen. The plasma outflow velocity was then derived as a function of the measured Doppler dimming. The static corona UV emission was simulated on the basis of the plasma electron density inferred from the polarized visible light. This study leads to the identification, in the velocity maps of the solar corona, of the high-density layer about ±10° wide, centered on the extension of a quiet equatorial streamer present at the east limb - the coronal origin of the heliospheric current sheet - where the slowest wind flows at about 160 ± 18 km s-1 from 4 R⊙ to 6 R⊙. Beyond the boundaries of the high-density layer, the wind velocity rapidly increases, marking the transition between slow and fast wind in the corona
METIS: the visible and UV coronagraph for solar orbiter
METIS coronagraph is designed to observe the solar corona with an annular field of view from 1.5 to 2.9 degrees in the visible broadband (580-640 nm) and in the UV HI Lyman-alpha, during the Sun close approaching and high latitude tilting orbit of Solar Orbiter. The big challenge for a coronagraph is the stray light rejection. In this paper after a description of the present METIS optical design, the stray light rejection design is presented in detail together with METIS off-pointing strategies throughout the mission. Data shown in this paper derive from the optimization of the optical design performed with Zemax ray tracing and from laboratory breadboards of the occultation system and of the polarimeter
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The European Solar Telescope
The European Solar Telescope (EST) is a project aimed at studying the magnetic connectivity of the solar atmosphere, from the deep photosphere to the upper chromosphere. Its design combines the knowledge and expertise gathered by the European solar physics community during the construction and operation of state-of-the-art solar telescopes operating in visible and near-infrared wavelengths: the Swedish 1m Solar Telescope, the German Vacuum Tower Telescope and GREGOR, the French Télescope Héliographique pour l'Étude du Magnétisme et des Instabilités Solaires, and the Dutch Open Telescope. With its 4.2 m primary mirror and an open configuration, EST will become the most powerful European ground-based facility to study the Sun in the coming decades in the visible and near-infrared bands. EST uses the most innovative technological advances: the first adaptive secondary mirror ever used in a solar telescope, a complex multi-conjugate adaptive optics with deformable mirrors that form part of the optical design in a natural way, a polarimetrically compensated telescope design that eliminates the complex temporal variation and wavelength dependence of the telescope Mueller matrix, and an instrument suite containing several (etalon-based) tunable imaging spectropolarimeters and several integral field unit spectropolarimeters. This publication summarises some fundamental science questions that can be addressed with the telescope, together with a complete description of its major subsystems
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