730 research outputs found
Consequences of the Solar System passage through dense interstellar clouds
International audienceSeveral consequences of the passage of the solar system through dense interstellar molecular clouds are discussed. These clouds, dense (more than 100 cm-3), cold (10?50 K) and extended (larger than 1 pc), are characterized by a gas-to-dust mass ratio of about 100, by a specific power grain size spectrum (grain radii usually cover the range 0.001?3 micron) and by an average dust-to-gas number density ratio of about 10-12. Frequently these clouds contain small-scale (10?100 AU) condensations with gas concentrations ranging up to 10 5 cm-3. At their casual passage over the solar system they exert pressures very much enhanced with respect to today's standards. Under these conditions it will occur that the Earth is exposed directly to the interstellar flow. It is shown first that even close to the Sun, at 1 AU, the cloud's matter is only partly ionized and should mainly interact with the solar wind by charge exchange processes. Dust particles of the cloud serve as a source of neutrals, generated by the solar UV irradiation of dust grains, causing the evaporation of icy materials. The release of neutral atoms from dust grains is then followed by strong influences on the solar wind plasma flow. The behavior of the neutral gas inflow parameters is investigated by a 2-D hydrodynamic approach to model the interaction processes. Because of a reduction of the heliospheric dimension down to 1 AU, direct influence of the cloud's matter to the terrestrial environment and atmosphere could be envisaged
A consistent thermodynamics of the MHD wave-heated two-fluid solar wind
International audienceWe start our considerations from two more recent findings in heliospheric physics: One is the fact that the primary solar wind protons do not cool off adiabatically with distance, but appear to be heated. The other one is that secondary protons, embedded in the solar wind as pick-up ions, behave quasi-isothermal at their motion to the outer heliosphere. These two phenomena must be physically closely connected with each other. To demonstrate this we solve a coupled set of enthalpy flow conservation equations for the two-fluid solar wind system consisting of primary and secondary protons. The coupling of these equations comes by the heat sources that are relevant, namely the dissipation of MHD turbulence power to the respective protons at the relevant dissipation scales. Hereby we consider both the dissipation of convected turbulences and the dissipation of turbulences locally driven by the injection of new pick-up ions into an unstable mode of the ion distribution function. Conversion of free kinetic energy of freshly injected secondary ions into turbulence power is finally followed by partial reabsorption of this energy both by primary and secondary ions. We show solutions of simultaneous integrations of the coupled set of differential thermodynamic two-fluid equations and can draw interesting conclusions from the solutions obtained. We can show that the secondary proton temperature with increasing radial distance asymptotically attains a constant value with a magnitude essentially determined by the actual solar wind velocity. Furthermore, we study the primary proton temperature within this two-fluid context and find a polytropic behaviour with radially and latitudinally variable polytropic indices determined by the local heat sources due to dissipated turbulent wave energy. Considering latitudinally variable solar wind conditions, as published by McComas et al. (2000), we also predict latitudinal variations of primary proton temperatures at large solar distances
A Cascade Neural Network Architecture investigating Surface Plasmon Polaritons propagation for thin metals in OpenMP
Surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) confined along metal-dielectric interface
have attracted a relevant interest in the area of ultracompact photonic
circuits, photovoltaic devices and other applications due to their strong field
confinement and enhancement. This paper investigates a novel cascade neural
network (NN) architecture to find the dependance of metal thickness on the SPP
propagation. Additionally, a novel training procedure for the proposed cascade
NN has been developed using an OpenMP-based framework, thus greatly reducing
training time. The performed experiments confirm the effectiveness of the
proposed NN architecture for the problem at hand
The TWINS-LAD mission: Observations of terrestrial Lyman-? fluxes
International audienceThe TWINS project (Two Wide-angle Imaging Neutral-atom Spectrometers) is mainly devoted to measure high energy neutral atoms (ENAs) originating via charge exchange of protons with geocoronal hydrogen atoms in the plasmasphere and magnetosphere. In order to unfold the local ion density along the line-of-sight (LOS) from the integrated ENA flux measurements, a good knowledge of the geocoronal hydrogen density distribution is needed. Therefore, two Lyman-? detectors (LADs) - designed and calibrated by the authors - were added to the TWINS package. These detectors register line-integrated Lyman-? resonance emission intensities which then can be used to get the actual local hydrogen densities with the help of a numerical inversion routine
The effects of a kappa-distribution in the heliosheath on the global heliosphere and ENA flux at 1 AU
We investigate heliosheath energetic neutral atom (ENA) fluxes at keV
energies, by assuming that the heliosheath proton distribution can be
approximated by a kappa-distribution. The choice of the kappa parameter derives
from observational data of the solar wind (SW). This has direct applications to
the upcoming IBEX mission. We will look at all-sky ENA maps within the IBEX
energy range (10 eV to 6 keV), as well as ENA energy spectra in several
directions. We find that the use of kappa, as opposed to a Maxwellian, gives
rise to greatly increased ENA fluxes above 1 keV, while medium energy fluxes
are somewhat reduced. We show how IBEX data can be used to estimate the
spectral slope in the heliosheath, and that the use of kappa reduces the
differences between ENA maps at different energies. We also investigate the
effect introducing a kappa-distribution has on the global interaction between
the SW and the local interstellar medium (LISM), and find that there is
generally an increase in energy transport from the heliosphere into the LISM,
due to the modified profile of ENA's energies. This results in a termination
shock that moves out by 4 AU, a heliopause that moves in by 9 AU and a bow
shock 25 AU farther out, in the nose direction
Metric Expansion from Microscopic Dynamics in an Inhomogeneous Universe
Theories with ingredients like the Higgs mechanism, gravitons, and inflaton
fields rejuvenate the idea that relativistic kinematics is dynamically
emergent. Eternal inflation treats the Hubble constant H as depending on
location. Microscopic dynamics implies that H is over much smaller lengths than
pocket universes to be understood as a local space reproduction rate. We
illustrate this via discussing that even exponential inflation in TeV-gravity
is slow on the relevant time scale. In our on small scales inhomogeneous
cosmos, a reproduction rate H depends on position. We therefore discuss
Einstein-Straus vacuoles and a Lindquist-Wheeler like lattice to connect the
local rate properly with the scaling of an expanding cosmos. Consistency allows
H to locally depend on Weyl curvature similar to vacuum polarization. We derive
a proportionality constant known from Kepler's third law and discuss the
implications for the finiteness of the cosmological constant.Comment: 23 pages, no figure
Neutral H density at the termination shock: a consolidation of recent results
We discuss a consolidation of determinations of the density of neutral
interstellar H at the nose of the termination shock carried out with the use of
various data sets, techniques, and modeling approaches. In particular, we focus
on the determination of this density based on observations of H pickup ions on
Ulysses during its aphelion passage through the ecliptic plane. We discuss in
greater detail a novel method of determination of the density from these
measurements and review the results from its application to actual data. The H
density at TS derived from this analysis is equal to 0.087 \pm 0.022 cm-3, and
when all relevant determinations are taken into account, the consolidated
density is obtained at 0.09 \pm 0.022 cm-3. The density of H in CHISM based on
literature values of filtration factor is then calculated at 0.16 \pm 0.04
cm-3.Comment: Submitted to Space Science Review
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