28,188 research outputs found
The formation of IRIS diagnostics I. A quintessential model atom of Mg II and general formation properties of the Mg II h&k lines
NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) space mission will study
how the solar atmosphere is energized. IRIS contains an imaging spectrograph
that covers the Mg II h&k lines as well as a slit-jaw imager centered at Mg II
k. Understanding the observations will require forward modeling of Mg II h&k
line formation from 3D radiation-MHD models. This paper is the first in a
series where we undertake this forward modeling. We discuss the atomic physics
pertinent to h&k line formation, present a quintessential model atom that can
be used in radiative transfer computations and discuss the effect of partial
redistribution (PRD) and 3D radiative transfer on the emergent line profiles.
We conclude that Mg II h&k can be modeled accurately with a 4-level plus
continuum Mg II model atom. Ideally radiative transfer computations should be
done in 3D including PRD effects. In practice this is currently not possible. A
reasonable compromise is to use 1D PRD computations to model the line profile
up to and including the central emission peaks, and use 3D transfer assuming
complete redistribution to model the central depression.Comment: 13 pages, 13 figures, accepted for Ap
The formation of IRIS diagnostics II. The formation of the Mg II h&k lines in the solar atmosphere
NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) small explorer mission
will study how the solar atmosphere is energized. IRIS contains an imaging
spectrograph that covers the Mg II h&k lines as well as a slit-jaw imager
centered at Mg II k. Understanding the observations requires forward modeling
of Mg II h&k line formation from 3D radiation-MHD models.
We compute the vertically emergent h&k intensity from a snapshot of a dynamic
3D radiation-MHD model of the solar atmosphere, and investigate which
diagnostic information about the atmosphere is contained in the synthetic line
profiles. We find that the Doppler shift of the central line depression
correlates strongly with the vertical velocity at optical depth unity, which is
typically located less than 200 km below the transition region (TR). By
combining the Doppler shifts of the h and the k line we can retrieve the sign
of the velocity gradient just below the TR. The intensity in the central line
depression is anticorrelated with the formation height, especially in subfields
of a few square Mm. This intensity could thus be used to measure the spatial
variation of the height of the transition region. The intensity in the
line-core emission peaks correlates with the temperature at its formation
height, especially for strong emission peaks. The peaks can thus be exploited
as a temperature diagnostic. The wavelength difference between the blue and red
peaks provides a diagnostic of the velocity gradients in the upper
chromosphere. The intensity ratio of the blue and red peaks correlates strongly
with the average velocity in the upper chromosphere. We conclude that the Mg II
h&k lines are excellent probes of the very upper chromosphere just below the
transition region, a height regime that is impossible to probe with other
spectral lines.Comment: 15 pages, 12 figures, accepted for ApJ, astro-ph abstract shortened
to confirm to submission requirement
Modeling non-thermal emission from stellar bow shocks
Runaway O- and early B-type stars passing throughout the interstellar medium
at supersonic velocities and characterized by strong stellar winds may produce
bow shocks that can serve as particle acceleration sites. Previous theoretical
models predict the production of high energy photons by non-thermal radiative
processes, but their efficiency is still debated. We aim to test and explain
the possibility of emission from the bow shocks formed by runaway stars
traveling through the interstellar medium by using previous theoretical models.
We apply our model to AE Aurigae, the first reported star with an X-ray
detected bow shock, to BD+43 3654, in which the observations failed in
detecting high energy emission, and to the transition phase of a supergiant
star in the late stages of its life.From our analysis, we confirm that the
X-ray emission from the bow shock produced by AE Aurigae can be explained by
inverse Compton processes involving the infrared photons of the heated dust. We
also predict low high energy flux emission from the bow shock produced by BD+43
3654, and the possibility of high energy emission from the bow shock formed by
a supergiant star during the transition phase from blue to red supergiant.Bow
shock formed by different type of runaway stars are revealed as a new possible
source of high energy photons in our neighbourhood
Network Mutual Information and Synchronization under Time Transformations
We investigate the effect of general time transformations on the phase
synchronization (PS) phenomenon and the mutual information rate (MIR) between
pairs of nodes in dynamical networks. We demonstrate two important results
concerning the invariance of both PS and the MIR. Under time transformations PS
can neither be introduced nor destroyed and the MIR cannot be raised from zero.
On the other hand, for proper time transformations the timing between the
cycles of the coupled oscillators can be largely improved. Finally, we discuss
the relevance of our findings for communication in dynamical networks.Comment: 15 p
Torsion and Gravitation: A new view
According to the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity, curvature and
torsion are two equivalent ways of describing the same gravitational field.
Despite equivalent, however, they act differently: whereas curvature yields a
geometric description, in which the concept of gravitational force is absent,
torsion acts as a true gravitational force, quite similar to the Lorentz force
of electrodynamics. As a consequence, the right-hand side of a
spinless-particle equation of motion (which would represent a gravitational
force) is always zero in the geometric description, but not in the teleparallel
case. This means essentially that the gravitational coupling prescription can
be minimal only in the geometric case. Relying on this property, a new
gravitational coupling prescription in the presence of curvature and torsion is
proposed. It is constructed in such a way to preserve the equivalence between
curvature and torsion, and its basic property is to be equivalent with the
usual coupling prescription of general relativity. According to this view, no
new physics is connected with torsion, which appears as a mere alternative to
curvature in the description of gravitation. An application of this formulation
to the equations of motion of both a spinless and a spinning particle is madeComment: To appear on IJMP
The Nash Problem from Geometric and Topological Perspective
We survey the proof of the Nash conjecture for surfaces and show how geometric and topological ideas developed in previous articles by the authors influenced it. Later, we summarize the main ideas in the higher dimensional statement and proof by de Fernex and Docampo. We end the paper by explaining later developments on generalized Nash problem and on Kollar and Nemethi holomorphic arcs
The Nash Problem from a Geometric and Topological Perspective
We survey the proof of the Nash conjecture for surfaces and show how geometric and topological ideas developed in previous articles by the au- thors influenced it. Later we summarize the main ideas in the higher dimen- sional statement and proof by de Fernex and Docampo. We end the paper by explaining later developments on generalized Nash problem and on Koll ́ar and Nemethi holomorphic arcs
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