The Position of High Frequency Waves with Respect to the Granulation Pattern

High frequency velocity oscillations were observed in the spectral lines Fe I 543.45nm and 543.29nm, using 2D spectroscopy with a Fabry- Perot and speckle reconstruction, at the VTT in Tenerife. We investigate the radial component of waves with frequencies in the range 8 - 22mHz in the internetwork, network and a pore. We find that the occurrence of waves do not show any preference on location and are equally distributed over down-flows and up-flows, regardless of the activity of the observed area in the line of Fe I 543.45nm. The waves observed in the lower formed line of Fe I 543.29nm seem to appear preferentially over down-flows.Comment: Article has 12 pages and 7 images. It is accepted in Solar Physics Journa

Calculation of Spectral Darkening and Visibility Functions for Solar Oscillations

Calculations of spectral darkening and visibility functions for the brightness oscillations of the Sun resulting from global solar oscillations are presented. This has been done for a broad range of the visible and infrared continuum spectrum. The procedure for the calculations of these functions includes the numerical computation of depth-dependent derivatives of the opacity caused by p modes in the photosphere. A radiative-transport code was used for this purpose to get the disturbances of the opacities from temperature and density fluctuations. The visibility and darkening functions are obtained for adiabatic oscillations under the assumption that the temperature disturbances are proportional to the undisturbed temperature of the photosphere. The latter assumption is the only way to explore any opacity effects since the eigenfunctions of p-mode oscillations have not been obtained so far. This investigation reveals that opacity effects have to be taken into account because they dominate the violet and infrared part of the spectrum. Because of this dominance, the visibility functions are negative for those parts of the spectrum. Furthermore, the darkening functions show a wavelength-dependent change of sign for some wavelengths owing to these opacity effects. However, the visibility and darkening functions under the assumptions used contradict the observations of global p-mode oscillations, but it is beyond doubt that the opacity effects influence the brightness fluctuations of the Sun resulting from global oscillations

Synthesis, characterization, and applications of magnetic nanoparticles featuring polyzwitterionic coatings

Throughout the last decades, magnetic nanoparticles (MNP) have gained tremendous interest in different fields of applications like biomedicine (e.g., magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), drug delivery, hyperthermia), but also more technical applications (e.g., catalysis, waste water treatment) have been pursued. Different surfactants and polymers are extensively used for surface coating of MNP to passivate the surface and avoid or decrease agglomeration, decrease or modulate biomolecule absorption, and in most cases increase dispersion stability. For this purpose, electrostatic or steric repulsion can be exploited and, in that regard, surface charge is the most important (hybrid) particle property. Therefore, polyelectrolytes are of great interest for nanoparticle coating, as they are able to stabilize the particles in dispersion by electrostatic repulsion due to their high charge densities. In this review article, we focus on polyzwitterions as a subclass of polyelectrolytes and their use as coating materials for MNP. In the context of biomedical applications, polyzwitterions are widely used as they exhibit antifouling properties and thus can lead to minimized protein adsorption and also long circulation times

Biogenes Silizium in stark desilifizierten Böden unter Ölpalmenanbau auf Sumatra, Indonesien

Vor allem seit den 70er Jahren ist auf Sumatra (Indonesien) ein rapider Flächenverlust tropischer Regenwälder durch die Etablierung von Ölpalmenplantagen zu verzeichnen. Neben positiven Auswirkungen auf den Lebensstandard von Kleinbauern, führt die Intensivierung von Ölpalmenanbau zu abnehmender Biodiversität und Bodenfruchtbarkeit sowie zur Degradation assoziierter ökosystemarer Funktionen. Bisher ist nicht bekannt, welche Auswirkungen der Anbau von Ölpalmen, die zu den Silizium-Akkumulatoren zählen, auf den Si-Kreislauf intensiv desilifizierter Böden hat. Silizium (Si) wird in natürlichen Regenwäldern durch den Streuabbau in den Boden zurückgeführt. Dabei stellt Si in biogener amorpher Kieselsäure (BSi, z. B. in Phytolithen) eine wesentliche Quelle von pflanzenverfügbarem, gelöstem Si (DSi) dar. Die hier vorgestellte Studie zielt auf die Prüfung der Hypothese ab, dass Ölpalmen durch ihren aktiven DSi-Entzug aus der Bodenlösung die Nachlieferung von DSi aus dem höchst reaktiven BSi-Pool ankurbeln, sodass dieser im Laufe der Zeit abnimmt. Diese Veränderungen des Si-Kreislaufs können langfristig zu einem Si-Verlust auf stark desilifizierten Böden unter Ölpalmenanbau führen. Zur Prüfung dieser Hypothese werden in dieser Studie Si-Pools in Oberböden von Acrisols unter Ölpalmenplantagen und tropischen Tiefland-Regenwäldern mittels der sequentiellen Si-Extraktion nach Georgiadis et al. [1] quantifiziert

Spectropolarimetric observations of an arch filament system with the GREGOR solar telescope

Arch filament systems occur in active sunspot groups, where a fibril structure connects areas of opposite magnetic polarity, in contrast to active region filaments that follow the polarity inversion line. We used the GREGOR Infrared Spectrograph (GRIS) to obtain the full Stokes vector in the spectral lines Si I 1082.7 nm, He I 1083.0 nm, and Ca I 1083.9 nm. We focus on the near-infrared calcium line to investigate the photospheric magnetic field and velocities, and use the line core intensities and velocities of the helium line to study the chromospheric plasma. The individual fibrils of the arch filament system connect the sunspot with patches of magnetic polarity opposite to that of the spot. These patches do not necessarily coincide with pores, where the magnetic field is strongest. Instead, areas are preferred not far from the polarity inversion line. These areas exhibit photospheric downflows of moderate velocity, but significantly higher downflows of up to 30 km/s in the chromospheric helium line. Our findings can be explained with new emerging flux where the matter flows downward along the fieldlines of rising flux tubes, in agreement with earlier results.Comment: Proceedings 12th Potsdam Thinkshop to appear in Astronomische Nachrichte

Photospheric Magnetic Fields of the Trailing Sunspots in Active Region NOAA 12396

The solar magnetic field is responsible for all aspects of solar activity. Sunspots are the main manifestation of the ensuing solar activity. Combining high-resolution and synoptic observations has the ambition to provide a comprehensive description of the sunspot growth and decay processes. Active region NOAA 12396 emerged on 2015 August 3 and was observed three days later with the 1.5-meter GREGOR solar telescope on 2015 August 6. High-resolution spectropolarimetric data from the GREGOR Infrared Spectrograph (GRIS) are obtained in the photospheric Si I $\lambda$ 1082.7 nm and Ca I $\lambda$1083.9 nm lines, together with the chromospheric He I $\lambda$1083.0 nm triplet. These near-infrared spectropolarimetric observations were complemented by synoptic line-of-sight magnetograms and continuum images of the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) and EUV images of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO).Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to be published in "Solar Polarization Workshop 8", ASP Proceedings, Luca Belluzzi (eds.

SPION@polydehydroalanine hybrid particles

It is generally accepted that a protein corona is rapidly formed upon exposure of nanoparticles to biological fluids and that both the amount and the composition of adsorbed proteins affect the dispersion properties of the resulting particles. Hereby, the net charge and overall charge density of the pristine nanoparticles are supposed to play a crucial role. In an attempt to control both charge and charge distribution, we report on the coating of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) with different polyelectrolytes. Starting from orthogonally protected polydehydroalanine, the material can be easily transformed into a polyanion (poly(tert-butoxycarbonyl acrylic acid), PtBAA), polycation (poly(aminomethylacrylate), PAMA), or even a polyzwitterion (polydehydroalanine, PDha). While coating of SPIONs with PtBAA and PDha was shown to be successful, approaches using PAMA have failed so far. The dispersion properties of the resulting hybrid particles have been investigated using dynamic light scattering (DLS), zeta-potential, and TEM measurements – the amount of adsorbed polymer was quantified using vibrating sample magnetometry (VSM) and thermogravimetric analysis (TGA)

A retrospective of the GREGOR solar telescope in scientific literature

In this review, we look back upon the literature, which had the GREGOR solar telescope project as its subject including science cases, telescope subsystems, and post-focus instruments. The articles date back to the year 2000, when the initial concepts for a new solar telescope on Tenerife were first presented at scientific meetings. This comprehensive bibliography contains literature until the year 2012, i.e., the final stages of commissioning and science verification. Taking stock of the various publications in peer-reviewed journals and conference proceedings also provides the "historical" context for the reference articles in this special issue of Astronomische Nachrichten/Astronomical Notes.Comment: 6 pages, 2 color figures, this is the pre-peer reviewed version of Denker et al. 2012, Astron. Nachr. 333, 81

The Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment (IMaX) for the Sunrise balloon-borne solar observatory

The Imaging Magnetograph eXperiment (IMaX) is a spectropolarimeter built by four institutions in Spain that flew on board the Sunrise balloon-borne telesocope in June 2009 for almost six days over the Arctic Circle. As a polarimeter IMaX uses fast polarization modulation (based on the use of two liquid crystal retarders), real-time image accumulation, and dual beam polarimetry to reach polarization sensitivities of 0.1%. As a spectrograph, the instrument uses a LiNbO3 etalon in double pass and a narrow band pre-filter to achieve a spectral resolution of 85 mAA. IMaX uses the high Zeeman sensitive line of Fe I at 5250.2 AA and observes all four Stokes parameters at various points inside the spectral line. This allows vector magnetograms, Dopplergrams, and intensity frames to be produced that, after reconstruction, reach spatial resolutions in the 0.15-0.18 arcsec range over a 50x50 arcsec FOV. Time cadences vary between ten and 33 seconds, although the shortest one only includes longitudinal polarimetry. The spectral line is sampled in various ways depending on the applied observing mode, from just two points inside the line to 11 of them. All observing modes include one extra wavelength point in the nearby continuum. Gauss equivalent sensitivities are four Gauss for longitudinal fields and 80 Gauss for transverse fields per wavelength sample. The LOS velocities are estimated with statistical errors of the order of 5-40 m/s. The design, calibration and integration phases of the instrument, together with the implemented data reduction scheme are described in some detail.Comment: 17 figure