529 research outputs found
The effects of pure density evolution on the brightness distribution of cosmological gamma-ray bursts
In this work, we explore the effects of burst rate density evolution on the observed brightness distribution of cosmological gamma-ray bursts. Although the brightness distribution of gamma-ray bursts observed by the BATSE experiment has been shown to be consistent with a nonevolving source population observed to redshifts of order unity, evolution of some form is likely to be present in the gamma-ray bursts. Additionally, nonevolving models place significant constraints on the range of observed burst luminosities, which are relaxed if evolution of the burst population is present. In this paper, three analytic forms of density evolution are examined. In general, forms of evolution with densities that increase monotonically with redshift require that the BATSE data correspond to bursts at larger redshifts, or to incorporate a wider range of burst luminosities, or both. Independent estimates of the maximum observed redshift in the BATSE data and/or the range of luminosity from which a large fraction of the observed bursts are drawn therefore allow for constraints to be placed on the amount of evolution that may be present in the burst population. Specifically, if recent measurements obtained from analysis of the BATSE duration distribution of the actual limiting redshift in the BATSE data at z(sub lim) = 2 are correct, the BATSE N(P) distribution in a Lambda = 0 universe is inconsistent at a level of approximately 3 alpha with nonevolving gamma-ray bursts and some form of evolution in the population is required. The sense of this required source evolution is to provide a higher density, larger luminosities, or both with increasing redshift
Determination Of Electron Flux Spectra In A Solar Flare With An Augmented Regularization Method: Application To Rhessi Data
Kontar et al. (2004) have shown how to recover mean source electron spectra
in solar flares through a physical constraint regularization analysis of the
bremsstrahlung photon spectra that they produce. They emphasize the use of
non-square inversion techniques, and preconditioning combined with physical
properties of the spectra to achieve the most meaningful solution to the
problem. Higher-order regularization techniques may be used to generate
forms with certain desirable properties (e.g., higher order
derivatives). They further note that such analyses may be used to infer
properties of the electron energy spectra at energies well above the maximum
photon energy observed. In this paper we apply these techniques to data from a
solar flare observed by RHESSI on 26 February, 2002. Results using different
orders of regularization are presented and compared for various time intervals.
Clear evidence is presented for a change in the value of the high-energy cutoff
in the mean source electron spectrum with time. We also show how the
construction of the injected (accelerated) electron spectrum
(assuming that Coulomb collisions in a cold target dominate the electron
energetics) is facilitated by the use of higher-order regularization methods.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, accepted to Solar Physic
Exceptional Record of Mid-Pleistocene Vertebrates Helps Differentiate Climatic from Anthropogenic Ecosystem Perturbations
Mid-Pleistocene vertebrates in North America are scarce but important for recognizing the ecological effects of climatic change in the absence of humans. We report on a uniquely rich mid-Pleistocene vertebrate sequence from Porcupine Cave, Colorado, which records at least 127 species and the earliest appearances of 30 mammals and birds. By analyzing \u3e20,000 mammal fossils in relation to modern species and independent climatic proxies, we determined how mammal communities reacted to presumed glacial-interglacial transitions between 1,000,000 and 600,000 years ago. We conclude that climatic warming primarily affected mammals of lower trophic and size categories, in contrast to documented human impacts on higher trophic and size categories historically. Despite changes in species composition and minor changes in small-mammal species richness evident at times of climatic change, overall structural stability of mammal communities persisted \u3e600,000 years before human impacts
GRB Polarimetry with POET
POET (Polarimeters for Energetic Transients) represents a concept for a Small Explorer (SMEX) satellite mission, whose principal scientific goal is to understand the structure of GRB sources through sensitive Xâray and Îłâray polarization measurements. The payload consists of two wide fieldâofâview (FoV) instruments: a Low Energy Polarimeter (LEP) capable of polarization measurements in the energy range from 2â15 keV and a high energy polarimeter (GammaâRay Polarimeter Experiment or GRAPE) that would measure polarization in the 60â500 keV energy range. The POET spacecraft provides a zenithâpointed platform for maximizing the exposure to deep space. Spacecraft rotation provides a means of effectively dealing with any residual systematic effects in the polarization response. POET provides sufficient sensitivity and sky coverage to measure statistically significant polarization (for polarization levels in excess of 20%) for âŒ80 GRBs in a twoâyear mission. High energy polarization data would also be obtained for SGRs, solar flares, pulsars and other sources of astronomical interest
Recent Advances in Understanding Particle Acceleration Processes in Solar Flares
We review basic theoretical concepts in particle acceleration, with
particular emphasis on processes likely to occur in regions of magnetic
reconnection. Several new developments are discussed, including detailed
studies of reconnection in three-dimensional magnetic field configurations
(e.g., current sheets, collapsing traps, separatrix regions) and stochastic
acceleration in a turbulent environment. Fluid, test-particle, and
particle-in-cell approaches are used and results compared. While these studies
show considerable promise in accounting for the various observational
manifestations of solar flares, they are limited by a number of factors, mostly
relating to available computational power. Not the least of these issues is the
need to explicitly incorporate the electrodynamic feedback of the accelerated
particles themselves on the environment in which they are accelerated. A brief
prognosis for future advancement is offered.Comment: This is a chapter in a monograph on the physics of solar flares,
inspired by RHESSI observations. The individual articles are to appear in
Space Science Reviews (2011
Factors associated with self-care activities among adults in the United Kingdom: a systematic review
Background: The Government has promoted self-care. Our aim was to review evidence about who uses self-tests and other self-care activities (over-the-counter medicine, private sector,complementary and alternative medicine (CAM), home blood pressure monitors).
Methods: During April 2007, relevant bibliographic databases (Medline, Embase, Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature, Applied Social Sciences Index and Abstracts, PsycINFO,British Nursing Index, Allied and Complementary Medicine Database, Sociological Abstracts,
International Bibliography of the Social Sciences, Arthritis and Complementary Medicine Database,
Complementary and Alternative Medicine and Pain Database) were searched, and potentially relevant studies were reviewed against eligibility criteria. Studies were included if they were published during the last 15 years and identified factors, reasons or characteristics associated with a relevant activity among UK adults. Two independent reviewers used proformas to assess the
quality of eligible studies.
Results: 206 potentially relevant papers were identified, 157 were excluded, and 49 papers related to 46 studies were included: 37 studies were, or used data from questionnaire surveys, 36 had quality scores of five or more out of 10, and 27 were about CAM. Available evidence suggests that
users of CAM and over-the-counter medicine are female, middle-aged, affluent and/or educated with some measure of poor health, and that people who use the private sector are affluent and/or educated.
Conclusion: People who engage in these activities are likely to be affluent. Targeted promotion may, therefore, be needed to ensure that use is equitable. People who use some activities also appear to have poorer measures of health than non-users or people attending conventional
services. It is, therefore, also important to ensure that self-care is not used as a second choice for people who have not had their needs met by conventional service
A Quantitative Model of Energy Release and Heating by Time-dependent, Localized Reconnection in a Flare with a Thermal Loop-top X-ray Source
We present a quantitative model of the magnetic energy stored and then
released through magnetic reconnection for a flare on 26 Feb 2004. This flare,
well observed by RHESSI and TRACE, shows evidence of non-thermal electrons only
for a brief, early phase. Throughout the main period of energy release there is
a super-hot (T>30 MK) plasma emitting thermal bremsstrahlung atop the flare
loops. Our model describes the heating and compression of such a source by
localized, transient magnetic reconnection. It is a three-dimensional
generalization of the Petschek model whereby Alfven-speed retraction following
reconnection drives supersonic inflows parallel to the field lines, which form
shocks heating, compressing, and confining a loop-top plasma plug. The
confining inflows provide longer life than a freely-expanding or
conductively-cooling plasma of similar size and temperature. Superposition of
successive transient episodes of localized reconnection across a current sheet
produces an apparently persistent, localized source of high-temperature
emission. The temperature of the source decreases smoothly on a time scale
consistent with observations, far longer than the cooling time of a single
plug. Built from a disordered collection of small plugs, the source need not
have the coherent jet-like structure predicted by steady-state reconnection
models. This new model predicts temperatures and emission measure consistent
with the observations of 26 Feb 2004. Furthermore, the total energy released by
the flare is found to be roughly consistent with that predicted by the model.
Only a small fraction of the energy released appears in the super-hot source at
any one time, but roughly a quarter of the flare energy is thermalized by the
reconnection shocks over the course of the flare. All energy is presumed to
ultimately appear in the lower-temperature T<20 MK, post-flare loops
A Revisit of the Masuda Flare
We revisit the flare on 1992 January 13, which is now universally termed the
"Masuda flare". The revisit is motivated not only by its uniqueness despite
accumulating observations of \hxr coronal emission, but also by the improvement
of Yohkoh hard X-ray imaging, which was achieved after the intensive
investigations on this celebrated event. Through an uncertainty analysis, we
show that the hard X-ray coronal source is located much closer to the soft
X-ray loop in the re-calibrated HXT images than in the original ones.
Specifically, the centroid of the M1-band (23--33 keV) coronal source is above
the brightest pixel of the SXT loop by ~5000+/-1000 km (~9600 km in the
original data); and above the apex of the 30% brightness contour of the SXT
loop by ~2000+/-1000 km (~7000 km in the original data). We suggest that this
change may naturally account for the fact that the spectrum of the coronal
emission was reported to be extremely hard below ~20 keV in the pre-calibration
investigations, whereas it has been considerably softer in the literature since
Sato's re-calibration circa 1999. Still, the coronal spectrum is flatter at
lower energies than at higher energies, owing to the lack of a similar source
in the L-band (14--23 keV), which remains a puzzle
Estimating the frequency of extremely energetic solar events, based on solar, stellar, lunar, and terrestrial records
The most powerful explosions on the Sun [...] drive the most severe
space-weather storms. Proxy records of flare energies based on SEPs in
principle may offer the longest time base to study infrequent large events. We
conclude that one suggested proxy, nitrate concentrations in polar ice cores,
does not map reliably to SEP events. Concentrations of select radionuclides
measured in natural archives may prove useful in extending the time interval of
direct observations up to ten millennia, but as their calibration to solar
flare fluences depends on multiple poorly known properties and processes, these
proxies cannot presently be used to help determine the flare energy frequency
distribution. Being thus limited to the use of direct flare observations, we
evaluate the probabilities of large-energy solar explosions by combining solar
flare observations with an ensemble of stellar flare observations. We conclude
that solar flare energies form a relatively smooth distribution from small
events to large flares, while flares on magnetically-active, young Sun-like
stars have energies and frequencies markedly in excess of strong solar flares,
even after an empirical scaling with the mean activity level of these stars. In
order to empirically quantify the frequency of uncommonly large solar flares
extensive surveys of stars of near-solar age need to be obtained, such as is
feasible with the Kepler satellite. Because the likelihood of flares larger
than approximately X30 remains empirically unconstrained, we present indirect
arguments, based on records of sunspots and on statistical arguments, that
solar flares in the past four centuries have likely not substantially exceeded
the level of the largest flares observed in the space era, and that there is at
most about a 10% chance of a flare larger than about X30 in the next 30 years.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures (in press as of 2012/06/18); Journal of
Geophysical Research (Space Physics), 201
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