Evolution of plasma turbulence excited with particle beams

Particles ejected from the Sun that stream through the surrounding plasma of the solar wind are causing instabilities. These generate wavemodes in a certain frequency range especially within shock regions, where particles are accelerated. The aim of this paper is to investigate of amplified Alfvenic wavemodes in driven incompressible magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. Results of different heliospheric scenarios from isotropic and anisotropic plasmas, as well as turbulence near the critical balance are shown. The energy transport of the amplified wavemode is governed by the mechanisms of diffusion, convection and dissipation of energy in wavenumber space. The strength of these effects varies with energy and wavenumber of the mode in question. Two-dimensional energy spectra of spherical k-space integration that permit detailed insight into the parallel and perpendicular development are presented. The evolution of energy injected through driving shows a strong energy transfer to perpendicular wavemodes. The main process at parallel wavemodes is the dissipation of energy in wavenumber space. The generation of higher harmonics along the parallel wavenumber axis is observed. We find evidence for a critical balance in our simulations.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&

Particle scattering in turbulent plasmas with amplified wave modes

High-energy particles stream during coronal mass ejections or flares through the plasma of the solar wind. This causes instabilities, which lead to wave growth at specific resonant wave numbers, especially within shock regions. These amplified wave modes influence the turbulent scattering process significantly. In this paper, results of particle transport and scattering in turbulent plasmas with excited wave modes are presented. The method used is a hybrid simulation code, which treats the heliospheric turbulence by an incompressible magnetohydrodynamic approach separately from a kinetic particle description. Furthermore, a semi-analytical model using quasilinear theory (QLT) is compared to the numerical results. This paper aims at a more fundamental understanding and interpretation of the pitch-angle scattering coefficients. Our calculations show a good agreement of particle simulations and the QLT for broad-band turbulent spectra; for higher turbulence levels and particle beam driven plasmas, the QLT approximation gets worse. Especially the resonance gap at μ = 0 poses a well-known problem for QLT for steep turbulence spectra, whereas test-particle computations show no problems for the particles to scatter across this region. The reason is that the sharp resonant wave-particle interactions in QLT are an oversimplification of the broader resonances in test-particle calculations, which result from nonlinear effects not included in the QLT. We emphasise the importance of these results for both numerical simulations and analytical particle transport approaches, especially the validity of the QLT. Appendices A-D are available in electronic form at http://www.aanda.or

Double resonant absorption measurement of acetylene symmetric vibrational states probed with cavity ring down spectroscopy

A novel mid-infrared/near-infrared double resonant absorption setup for studying infrared-inactive vibrational states is presented. A strong vibrational transition in the mid-infrared region is excited using an idler beam from a singly resonant continuous-wave optical parametric oscillator, to populate an intermediate vibrational state. High output power of the optical parametric oscillator and the strength of the mid-infrared transition result in efficient population transfer to the intermediate state, which allows measuring secondary transitions from this state with a high signal-to-noise ratio. A secondary, near-infrared transition from the intermediate state is probed using cavity ring down spectroscopy, which provides high sensitivity in this wavelength region. Due to the narrow linewidths of the excitation sources, the rovibrational lines of the secondary transition are measured with sub-Doppler resolution. The setup is used to access a previously unreported symmetric vibrational state of acetylene, $\nu_1+\nu_2+\nu_3+\nu_4^1+\nu_5^{-1}$ in the normal mode notation. Single-photon transitions to this state from the vibrational ground state are forbidden. Ten lines of the newly measured state are observed and fitted with the linear least-squares method to extract the band parameters. The vibrational term value was measured to be at 9775.0018(45) $\text{cm}^{-1}$, the rotational parameter $B$ was 1.162222 $\text{cm}^{-1}$, and the quartic centrifugal distortion parameter $D$ was 3.998(62)$\times 10^{-6} \text{cm}^{-1}$, where the numbers in the parenthesis are one-standard errors in the least significant digits

Overdiagnosis and overtreatment of breast cancer: Overdiagnosis in randomised controlled trials of breast cancer screening

Data from randomised controlled trials of mammographic screening can be used to determine the extent of any overdiagnosis, as soon as either a time equivalent to the lead-time has elapsed after the final screen, or the control arm has been offered screening. This paper reviews those randomised trials for which breast cancer incidence data are available. In recent trials in which the control group has not been offered screening, an excess incidence of breast cancer remains after many years of follow-up. In those trials in which the control arm has been offered screening, although there is a possible shift from invasive to in situ disease, there is no evidence of overdiagnosis as a result of incident screens

Fringe spacing and phase of interfering matter waves

We experimentally investigate the outcoupling of atoms from Bose-Einstein condensates using two radio-frequency (rf) fields in the presence of gravity. We show that the fringe separation in the resulting interference pattern derives entirely from the energy difference between the two rf fields and not the gravitational potential difference. We subsequently demonstrate how the phase and polarisation of the rf radiation directly control the phase of the matter wave interference and provide a semi-classical interpretation of the results.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

CME liftoff with high-frequency fragmented type II burst emission

Aims: Solar radio type II bursts are rarely seen at frequencies higher than a few hundred MHz. Since metric type II bursts are thought to be signatures of propagating shock waves, it is of interest to know how these shocks, and the type II bursts, are formed. In particular, how are high-frequency, fragmented type II bursts created? Are there differences in shock acceleration or in the surrounding medium that could explain the differences to the "typical" metric type IIs? Methods: We analyse one unusual metric type II event in detail, with comparison to white-light, EUV, and X-ray observations. As the radio event was associated with a flare and a coronal mass ejection (CME), we investigate their connection. We then utilize numerical MHD simulations to study the shock structure induced by an erupting CME in a model corona including dense loops. Results: Our simulations show that the fragmented part of the type II burst can be formed when a coronal shock driven by a mass ejection passes through a system of dense loops overlying the active region.To produce fragmented emission, the conditions for plasma emission have to be more favourable inside the loop than in the interloop area. The obvious hypothesis, consistent with our simulation model, is that the shock strength decreases significantly in the space between the denser loops. The later, more typical type II burst appears when the shock exits the dense loop system and finally, outside the active region, the type II burst dies out when the changing geometry no longer favours the electron shock-acceleration.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, A&A accepte