125 research outputs found
Cyclic and Long-term Variation of Sunspot Magnetic Fields
Measurements from the Mount Wilson Observatory (MWO) are used to study the
long-term variations of sunspot field strengths from 1920 to 1958. Following a
modified approach similar to that in Pevtsov et al. (2011), for each observing
week we select a single sunspot with the strongest field strength measured that
week and then compute monthly averages of these weekly maximum field strengths.
The data show the solar cycle variation of the peak field strengths with an
amplitude of about 500-700 gauss (G), but no statistically significant
long-term trends. Next, we use the sunspot observations from the Royal
Greenwich Observatory (RGO) to establish a relationship between the sunspot
areas and the sunspot field strengths for Cycles 15-19. This relationship is
then used to create a proxy of peak magnetic field strength based on sunspot
areas from the RGO and the USAF/NOAA network for the period from 1874 to early
2012. Over this interval, the magnetic field proxy shows a clear solar cycle
variation with an amplitude of 500-700 G and a weaker long-term trend. From
1874 to around 1920, the mean value of magnetic field proxy increases by about
300-350 G, and, following a broad maximum in 1920-1960, it decreases by about
300 G. Using the proxy for the magnetic field strength as the reference, we
scale the MWO field measurements to the measurements of the magnetic fields in
Pevtsov et al. (2011) to construct a combined data set of maximum sunspot field
strengths extending from 1920 to early 2012. This combined data set shows
strong solar cycle variations and no significant long-term trend (linear fit to
the data yields a slope of 0.8 G year). On the other hand, the
peak sunspot field strengths observed at the minimum of the solar cycle show a
gradual decline over the last three minima (corresponding to cycles 21-23) with
a mean downward trend of 15 G year
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A multi-wavelength analysis of active regions and sunspots by comparison of automatic detection algorithms
YesThe launch of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in early 2010 has provided the solar
physics community with the most detailed view of the Sun to date. However, this presents new
challenges for the analysis of solar data. Currently,
SDO sends over 1 terabyte of data per day back to Earth and methods for fast and reliable analysis are
more important than ever. This article details four algorithms developed separately at the Universities
of Bradford and Glasgow, the
Royal Observatory of Belgium and Trinity College Dublin for the purposes of automated detection of
solar active regions (ARs) and sunspots at different levels of the solar atmosphere
Three-dimensional random Voronoi tessellations: From cubic crystal lattices to Poisson point processes
We perturb the SC, BCC, and FCC crystal structures with a spatial Gaussian noise whose adimensional strength is controlled by the parameter a, and analyze the topological and metrical properties of the resulting Voronoi Tessellations (VT). The topological properties of the VT of the SC and FCC crystals are unstable with respect to the introduction of noise, because the corresponding polyhedra are geometrically degenerate, whereas the tessellation of the BCC crystal is topologically stable even against noise of small but finite intensity. For weak noise, the mean area of the perturbed BCC and FCC crystals VT increases quadratically with a. In the case of perturbed SCC crystals, there is an optimal amount of noise that minimizes the mean area of the cells. Already for a moderate noise (a>0.5), the properties of the three perturbed VT are indistinguishable, and for intense noise (a>2), results converge to the Poisson-VT limit. Notably, 2-parameter gamma distributions are an excellent model for the empirical of of all considered properties. The VT of the perturbed BCC and FCC structures are local maxima for the isoperimetric quotient, which measures the degre of sphericity of the cells, among space filling VT. In the BCC case, this suggests a weaker form of the recentluy disproved Kelvin conjecture. Due to the fluctuations of the shape of the cells, anomalous scalings with exponents >3/2 is observed between the area and the volumes of the cells, and, except for the FCC case, also for a->0. In the Poisson-VT limit, the exponent is about 1.67. As the number of faces is positively correlated with the sphericity of the cells, the anomalous scaling is heavily reduced when we perform powerlaw fits separately on cells with a specific number of faces
Adiabatic quantum pump in the presence of external ac voltages
We investigate a quantum pump which in addition to its dynamic pump
parameters is subject to oscillating external potentials applied to the
contacts of the sample. Of interest is the rectification of the ac currents
flowing through the mesoscopic scatterer and their interplay with the quantum
pump effect. We calculate the adiabatic dc current arising under the
simultaneous action of both the quantum pump effect and classical
rectification. In addition to two known terms we find a third novel
contribution which arises from the interference of the ac currents generated by
the external potentials and the ac currents generated by the pump. The
interference contribution renormalizes both the quantum pump effect and the ac
rectification effect. Analysis of this interference effect requires a
calculation of the Floquet scattering matrix beyond the adiabatic approximation
based on the frozen scattering matrix alone. The results permit us to find the
instantaneous current. In addition to the current generated by the oscillating
potentials, and the ac current due to the variation of the charge of the frozen
scatterer, there is a third contribution which represents the ac currents
generated by an oscillating scatterer. We argue that the resulting pump effect
can be viewed as a quantum rectification of the instantaneous ac currents
generated by the oscillating scatterer. These instantaneous currents are an
intrinsic property of a nonstationary scattering process.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur
Evolution of active and polar photospheric magnetic fields during the rise of Cycle 24 compared to previous cycles
The evolution of the photospheric magnetic field during the declining phase
and minimum of Cycle 23 and the recent rise of Cycle 24 are compared with the
behavior during previous cycles. We used longitudinal full-disk magnetograms
from the NSO's three magnetographs at Kitt Peak, the Synoptic Optical Long-term
Investigations of the Sun (SOLIS) Vector Spectro-Magnetograph (VSM), the
Spectromagnetograph and the 512-Channel Magnetograph instruments, and
longitudinal full-disk magnetograms from the Mt. Wilson 150-foot tower. We
analyzed 37 years of observations from these two observatories that have been
observing daily, weather permitting, since 1974, offering an opportunity to
study the evolving relationship between the active region and polar fields in
some detail over several solar cycles. It is found that the annual averages of
a proxy for the active region poloidal magnetic field strength, the magnetic
field strength of the high-latitude poleward streams, and the time derivative
of the polar field strength are all well correlated in each hemisphere. These
results are based on statistically significant cyclical patterns in the active
region fields and are consistent with the Babcock-Leighton phenomenological
model for the solar activity cycle. There was more hemispheric asymmetry in the
activity level, as measured by total and maximum active region flux, during
late Cycle 23 (after around 2004), when the southern hemisphere was more
active, and Cycle 24 up to the present, when the northern hemisphere has been
more active, than at any other time since 1974. The active region net proxy
poloidal fields effectively disappeared in both hemispheres around 2004, and
the polar fields did not become significantly stronger after this time. We see
evidence that the process of Cycle 24 field reversal has begun at both poles.Comment: Accepted for publication in Solar Physic
A weakly stable algorithm for general Toeplitz systems
We show that a fast algorithm for the QR factorization of a Toeplitz or
Hankel matrix A is weakly stable in the sense that R^T.R is close to A^T.A.
Thus, when the algorithm is used to solve the semi-normal equations R^T.Rx =
A^Tb, we obtain a weakly stable method for the solution of a nonsingular
Toeplitz or Hankel linear system Ax = b. The algorithm also applies to the
solution of the full-rank Toeplitz or Hankel least squares problem.Comment: 17 pages. An old Technical Report with postscript added. For further
details, see http://wwwmaths.anu.edu.au/~brent/pub/pub143.htm
Analytic properties of the Landau gauge gluon and quark propagators
We explore the analytic structure of the gluon and quark propagators of
Landau gauge QCD from numerical solutions of the coupled system of renormalized
Dyson--Schwinger equations and from fits to lattice data. We find sizable
negative norm contributions in the transverse gluon propagator indicating the
absence of the transverse gluon from the physical spectrum. A simple analytic
structure for the gluon propagator is proposed. For the quark propagator we
find evidence for a mass-like singularity on the real timelike momentum axis,
with a mass of 350 to 500 MeV. Within the employed Green's functions approach
we identify a crucial term in the quark-gluon vertex that leads to a positive
definite Schwinger function for the quark propagator.Comment: 42 pages, 16 figures, revtex; version to be published in Phys Rev
Virtual Compton Scattering and Neutral Pion Electroproduction in the Resonance Region up to the Deep Inelastic Region at Backward Angles
We have made the first measurements of the virtual Compton scattering (VCS)
process via the H exclusive reaction in the nucleon resonance
region, at backward angles. Results are presented for the -dependence at
fixed GeV, and for the -dependence at fixed near 1.5 GeV.
The VCS data show resonant structures in the first and second resonance
regions. The observed -dependence is smooth. The measured ratio of
H to H cross sections emphasizes the different
sensitivity of these two reactions to the various nucleon resonances. Finally,
when compared to Real Compton Scattering (RCS) at high energy and large angles,
our VCS data at the highest (1.8-1.9 GeV) show a striking -
independence, which may suggest a transition to a perturbative scattering
mechanism at the quark level.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures. To appear in Phys.Rev.
Dynamics of the O(e,e'p) cross section at high missing energies
We measured the cross section and response functions (R_L, R_T, and R_LT) for the 16O(e,e'p) reaction in quasielastic kinematics for missing energies 25 60 MeV and P_miss > 200 MeV/c, the cross section is relatively constant. Calculations which include contributions from pion exchange currents, isobar currents and short-range correlations account for the shape and the transversity but only for half of the magnitude of the measured cross section
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