Origins of the Ambient Solar Wind: Implications for Space Weather

The Sun's outer atmosphere is heated to temperatures of millions of degrees, and solar plasma flows out into interplanetary space at supersonic speeds. This paper reviews our current understanding of these interrelated problems: coronal heating and the acceleration of the ambient solar wind. We also discuss where the community stands in its ability to forecast how variations in the solar wind (i.e., fast and slow wind streams) impact the Earth. Although the last few decades have seen significant progress in observations and modeling, we still do not have a complete understanding of the relevant physical processes, nor do we have a quantitatively precise census of which coronal structures contribute to specific types of solar wind. Fast streams are known to be connected to the central regions of large coronal holes. Slow streams, however, appear to come from a wide range of sources, including streamers, pseudostreamers, coronal loops, active regions, and coronal hole boundaries. Complicating our understanding even more is the fact that processes such as turbulence, stream-stream interactions, and Coulomb collisions can make it difficult to unambiguously map a parcel measured at 1 AU back down to its coronal source. We also review recent progress -- in theoretical modeling, observational data analysis, and forecasting techniques that sit at the interface between data and theory -- that gives us hope that the above problems are indeed solvable.Comment: Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Special issue connected with a 2016 ISSI workshop on "The Scientific Foundations of Space Weather." 44 pages, 9 figure

A variable stiffness transverse mode shape memory alloy actuator as a minimally invasive organ positioner

Smart materials have gained a great deal of attention in recent years because of their unique actuation properties. Actuators are needed in the medical field where space is limited. Presented within this work is an organ positioner used to position the esophagus away from the left atrium to avoid the development of an esophageal fistula during atrial fibrillation (afib) ablation procedures. Within this work, a subroutine was implemented into the finite element framework to predict the midspan load capacity of a near equiatomic NiTi specimen in both the super elastic and shape memory regimes. The purpose of the simulations and experimental results was to develop a design envelope for the organ positioning device. The transverse loading experiments were conducted at several different temperatures leading to the ability to design a variable stiffness actuator. This is essential because the actuator must not be too stiff to injure the organ it is positioning. Extended further, geometric perturbations were applied in the virtual model and the entire design envelope was developed. Further, nitinol was tested for safety in the radio-frequency environment (to ensure that local heating will not occur in the ablation environment). With the safety of the device confirmed, a primitive prototype was manufactured and successfully tested in a cadaver. The design of the final device is also presented. The contribution of this work is the presentation of a new type of positoning device for medical purposes (NiTiBOP). In the process a comprehensive model for transverse actuation of an SMA actuator was developed and experimentally verified