516 research outputs found
Evidence of photospheric vortex flows at supergranular junctions observed by FG/SOT (Hinode)
Twisting motions of different nature are observed in several layers of the
solar atmosphere. Chromospheric sunspot whorls and rotation of sunspots or even
higher up in the lower corona sigmoids are examples of the large scale twisted
topology of many solar features. Nevertheless, their occurrence at large scale
in the quiet photosphere has not been investigated. The present study reveals
the existence of vortex flows located at the supergranular junctions of the
quiet Sun. We use a 1-hour and a 5-hour time series of the granulation in Blue
continuum and G-band images from FG/SOT to derive the photospheric flows. A
feature tracking technique called Balltracking is performed to track the
granules and reveal the underlying flow fields. In both time series we identify
long-lasting vortex flow located at supergranular junctions. The first vortex
flow lasts at least 1 hour and is ~20-arcsec-wide (~15.5 Mm). The second vortex
flow lasts more than 2 hours and is ~27-arcsec-wide (~21 Mm).Comment: 4 pages, 10 figure
The INTEGRAL/SPI response and the Crab observations
The Crab region was observed several times by INTEGRAL for calibration
purposes. This paper aims at underlining the systematic interactions between
(i) observations of this reference source, (ii) in-flight calibration of the
instrumental response and (iii) the development and validation of the analysis
tools of the SPI spectrometer. It first describes the way the response is
produced and how studies of the Crab spectrum lead to improvements and
corrections in the initial response. Then, we present the tools which were
developed to extract spectra from the SPI observation data and finally a Crab
spectrum obtained with one of these methods, to show the agreement with
previous experiments. We conclude with the work still ahead to understand
residual uncertainties in the response.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, Proc. of the 5th INTEGRAL Workshop (Feb. 16-20
2004), to be published by ES
INTEGRAL broadband spectroscopy of Vela X-1
The wind-accreting X-ray binary pulsar and cyclotron line source Vela X-1 has
been observed extensively during INTEGRAL Core Program observations of the Vela
region in June-July and November-December 2003. In the latter set of
observations the source showed intense flaring -- see also Staubert et al.
(2004), these proceedings.
We present early results on time averaged and time resolved spectra, of both
epochs of observations. A cyclotron line feature at ~53 keV is clearly detected
in the INTEGRAL spectra and its broad shape is resolved in SPI spectra. The
remaining issues in the calibration of the instruments do not allow to resolve
the question of the disputed line feature at 20-25 keV.
During the first main flare the average luminosity increases by a factor of
\~10, but the spectral shape remains very similar, except for a moderate
softening.Comment: Accepted for proceedings of 5th INTEGRAL Worksho
Vortices in simulations of solar surface convection
We report on the occurrence of small-scale vortices in simulations of the
convective solar surface. Using an eigenanalysis of the velocity gradient
tensor, we find the subset of high vorticity regions in which the plasma is
swirling. The swirling regions form an unsteady, tangled network of filaments
in the turbulent downflow lanes. Near-surface vertical vortices are underdense
and cause a local depression of the optical surface. They are potentially
observable as bright points in the dark intergranular lanes. Vortex features
typically exist for a few minutes, during which they are moved and twisted by
the motion of the ambient plasma. The bigger vortices found in the simulations
are possibly, but not necessarily, related to observations of granular-scale
spiraling pathlines in "cork animations" or feature tracking.Comment: 11 pages, 13 figures, accepted for publication in A&A, complementary
movies at http://www.mps.mpg.de/homes/moll/strudel/papermovies
R-Charon, a Modeling Language for Reconfigurable Hybrid Systems
This paper describes the modeling language as an extension for architectural reconfiguration to the existing distributed hybrid system modeling language Charon. The target application domain of R-Charon includes but is not limited to modular reconfigurable robots and large-scale transportation systems. While largely leaving the Charon syntax and semantics intact, R-Charon allows dynamic creation and destruction of components (agents) as well as of links (references) between the agents. As such, R-Charon is the first formal, hybrid automata based modeling language which also addresses dynamic reconfiguration. We develop and present the syntax and operational semantics for R-Charon on three levels: behavior (modes), structure (agents) and configuration (system)
EIS/Hinode observations of Doppler flow seen through the 40 arcsec wide slit
The Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on board Hinode is the
first solar telescope to obtain wide slit spectral images that can be used for
detecting Doppler flows in transition region and coronal lines on the Sun and
to relate them to their surrounding small scale dynamics. We select EIS lines
covering the temperature range 6x10^4 K to 2x10^6 K that give spectrally pure
images of the Sun with the 40 arcsec slit. In these images Doppler shifts are
seen as horizontal brightenings. Inside the image it is difficult to
distinguish shifts from horizontal structures but emission beyond the image
edge can be unambiguously identified as a line shift in several lines separated
from others on their blue or red side by more than the width of the
spectrometer slit (40 pixels). In the blue wing of He II, we find a large
number of events with properties (size and lifetime) similar to the
well-studied explosive events seen in the ultraviolet spectral range.
Comparison with X-Ray Telescope (XRT) images shows many Doppler shift events at
the footpoints of small X-ray loops. The most spectacular event observed showed
a strong blue shift in transition region and lower corona lines from a small
X-ray spot that lasted less than 7 min. The emission appears to be near a cool
coronal loop connecting an X-ray bright point to an adjacent region of quiet
Sun. The width of the emission implies a line-of-sight velocity of 220 km/s. In
addition, we show an example of an Fe XV shift with a velocity about 120 km/s,
coming from what looks like a narrow loop leg connecting a small X-ray
brightening to a larger region of X-ray emission.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, to be published in Solar Physic
Horizontal supergranule-scale motions inferred from TRACE ultraviolet observations of the chromosphere
We study horizontal supergranule-scale motions revealed by TRACE observation
of the chromospheric emission, and investigate the coupling between the
chromosphere and the underlying photosphere. A highly efficient
feature-tracking technique called balltracking has been applied for the first
time to the image sequences obtained by TRACE (Transition Region and Coronal
Explorer) in the passband of white light and the three ultraviolet passbands
centered at 1700 {\AA}, 1600 {\AA}, and 1550 {\AA}. The resulting velocity
fields have been spatially smoothed and temporally averaged in order to reveal
horizontal supergranule-scale motions that may exist at the emission heights of
these passbands. We find indeed a high correlation between the horizontal
velocities derived in the white-light and ultraviolet passbands. The horizontal
velocities derived from the chromospheric and photospheric emission are
comparable in magnitude. The horizontal motions derived in the UV passbands
might indicate the existence of a supergranule-scale magnetoconvection in the
chromosphere, which may shed new light on the study of mass and energy supply
to the corona and solar wind at the height of the chromosphere. However, it is
also possible that the apparent motions reflect the chromospheric brightness
evolution as produced by acoustic shocks which might be modulated by the
photospheric granular motions in their excitation process, or advected partly
by the supergranule-scale flow towards the network while propagating upward
from the photosphere. To reach a firm conclusion, it is necessary to
investigate the role of granular motions in the excitation of shocks through
numerical modeling, and future high-cadence chromospheric magnetograms must be
scrutinized.Comment: 5 figures, accepted by Astronomy & Astrophysic
Multilevel Contracts for Trusted Components
This article contributes to the design and the verification of trusted
components and services. The contracts are declined at several levels to cover
then different facets, such as component consistency, compatibility or
correctness. The article introduces multilevel contracts and a
design+verification process for handling and analysing these contracts in
component models. The approach is implemented with the COSTO platform that
supports the Kmelia component model. A case study illustrates the overall
approach.Comment: In Proceedings WCSI 2010, arXiv:1010.233
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