855 research outputs found
Orphan penumbrae: Submerging horizontal fields
We investigate the properties of orphan penumbrae, which are photospheric
filamentary structures observed in active regions near polarity inversion lines
that resemble the penumbra of regular sunspots but are not connected to any
umbra. We use Hinode data from the Solar Optical Telescope to determine the
properties of orphan penumbrae. Spectropolarimetric data are employed to obtain
the vector magnetic field and line-of-sight velocities in the photosphere.
Magnetograms are used to study the overall evolution of these structures, and
G-band and Ca II H filtergrams are to investigate their brightness and apparent
horizontal motions. Orphan penumbrae form between regions of opposite polarity
in places with horizontal magnetic fields. Their magnetic configuration is that
of -shaped flux ropes. In the two cases studied here, the
opposite-polarity regions approach each other with time and the whole structure
submerges as the penumbral filaments disappear. Orphan penumbrae are very
similar to regular penumbrae, including the existence of strong gas flows.
Therefore, they could have a similar origin. The main difference between them
is the absence of a "background" magnetic field in orphan penumbrae. This could
explain most of the observed differences. The fast flows we detect in orphan
penumbrae may be caused by the siphon flow mechanism. Based on the similarities
between orphan and regular penumbrae, we propose that the Evershed flow is also
a manifestation of siphon flows.Comment: 15 pages, 15 figure
Properties of simulated sunspot umbral dots
Realistic 3D radiative MHD simulations reveal the magneto-convective
processes underlying the formation of the photospheric fine structure of
sunspots, including penumbral filaments and umbral dots. Here we provide
results from a statistical analysis of simulated umbral dots and compare them
with reports from high-resolution observations. A multi-level segmentation and
tracking algorithm has been used to isolate the bright structures in synthetic
bolometric and continuum brightness images. Areas, brightness, and lifetimes of
the resulting set of umbral dots are found to be correlated: larger umbral dots
tend to be brighter and live longer. The magnetic field strength and velocity
structure of umbral dots on surfaces of constant optical depth in the continuum
at 630 nm indicate that the strong field reduction and high velocities in the
upper parts of the upflow plumes underlying umbral dots are largely hidden from
spectro-polarimetric observations. The properties of the simulated umbral dots
are generally consistent with the results of recent high-resolution
observations. However, the observed population of small, short-lived umbral
dots is not reproduced by the simulations, possibly owing to insufficient
spatial resolution.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
Isospin dependence of nucleon Correlations in ground state nuclei
The dispersive optical model (DOM) as presently implemented can investigate
the isospin (nucleon asymmetry) dependence of the Hartree-Fock-like potential
relevant for nucleons near the Fermi energy. Data constraints indicate that a
Lane-type potential adequately describes its asymmetry dependence. Correlations
beyond the mean-field can also be described in this framework, but this
requires an extension that treats the non-locality of the Hartree-Fock-like
potential properly. The DOM has therefore been extended to properly describe
ground-state properties of nuclei as a function of nucleon asymmetry in
addition to standard ingredients like elastic nucleon scattering data and level
structure. Predictions of nucleon correlations at larger nucleon asymmetries
can then be made after data at smaller asymmetries constrain the potentials
that represent the nucleon self-energy. A simple extrapolation for Sn isotopes
generates predictions for increasing correlations of minority protons with
increasing neutron number. Such predictions can be investigated by performing
experiments with exotic beams. The predicted neutron properties for the double
closed-shell 132Sn nucleus exhibit similar correlations as those in 208Pb.
Future relevance of these studies for understanding the properties of all
nucleons, including those with high momentum, and the role of three-body forces
in nuclei are briefly discussed. Such an implementation will require a proper
treatment of the non-locality of the imaginary part of the potentials and a
description of high-momentum nucleons as experimentally constrained by the
(e,e'p) reactions performed at Jefferson Lab.Comment: 7 pages and 7 figure
Brightness, distribution, and evolution of sunspot umbral dots
We present a 106-minute TiO (705.7nm) time series of high spatial and
temporal resolution that contains thousands of umbral dots (UDs) in a mature
sunspot in the active region NOAA 10667 at =0.95. The data were acquired
with the 1-m Swedish Solar Telescope on La Palma. With the help of a multilevel
tracking (MLT) algorithm the sizes, brightnesses, and trajectories of 12836
umbral dots were found and analyzed. The MLT allows UDs with very low contrast
to be reliably identified. Inside the umbra we determine a UD filling factor of
11%. The histogram of UD lifetimes is monotonic, i.e. a UD does not have a
typical lifetime. Three quarters of the UDs lived for less than 150s and showed
no or little motion. The histogram of the UD diameters exhibits a maximum at
225km, i.e. most of the UDs are spatially resolved. UDs display a typical
horizontal velocity of 420m/s and a typical peak intensity of 51% of the mean
intensity of the quiet photosphere, making them on average 20% brighter than
the local umbral background. Almost all mobile UDs (large birth-death distance)
were born close to the umbra-penumbra boundary, move towards the umbral center,
and are brighter than average. Notably bright and mobile UDs were also observed
along a prominent UD chain, both ends of which are located at the
umbra-penumbra boundary. Their motion started primarily at either of the ends
of the chain, continued along the chain, and ended near the chain's center. We
observed the splitting and merging of UDs and the temporal succession of both.
For the first time the evolution of brightness, size, and horizontal speed of a
typical UD could be determined in a statistically significant way. Considerable
differences between the evolution of central and peripheral UDs are found,
which point to a difference in origin
Downflows in sunspot umbral dots
We study the velocity field of umbral dots at a resolution of 0.14". Our
analysis is based on full Stokes spectropolarimetric measurements of a pore
taken with the CRISP instrument at the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope. We
determine the flow velocity at different heights in the photosphere from a
bisector analysis of the Fe I 630 nm lines. In addtion, we use the observed
Stokes Q, U, and V profiles to characterize the magnetic properties of these
structures. We find that most umbral dots are associated with strong upflows in
deep photospheric layers. Some of them also show concentrated patches of
downflows at their edges, with sizes of about 0.25", velocities of up to 1000
m/s, and enhanced net circular polarization signals. The downflows evolve
rapidly and have lifetimes of only a few minutes. These results appear to
validate numerical models of magnetoconvection in the presence of strong
magnetic fields.Comment: Final published version. For best quality figures, please download
the PS versio
Asymmetry dependence of proton correlations
A dispersive optical model analysis of p+40Ca and p+48Ca interactions has
been carried out. The real and imaginary potentials have been constrained from
fits to elastic scattering data, reaction cross sections, and level properties
of valence hole states deduced from (e,e'p) data. The surface imaginary
potential was found to be larger overall and the gap in this potential on
either side of the Fermi energy was found to be smaller for the neutron-rich
p+48Ca system. These results imply that protons with energies near the Fermi
surface experience larger correlations with increasing asymmetry.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure
A model of an expanding giant that swallowed planets for the eruption of V838 Monocerotis
In early 2002 V838 Monocerotis had an extraordinary outburst whose nature is
still unclear. The optical light curve showed at least three peaks and imaging
revealed a light echo around the object - evidence for a dust shell which was
emitted several thousand years ago and now reflecting light from the eruption.
Spectral analysis suggests that the object was relatively cold throughout the
event, which was characterized by an expansion to extremely large radii. We
show that the three peaks in the light curve have a similar shape and thus it
seems likely that a certain phenomenon was three times repeated. Our suggestion
that the outburst was caused by the expansion of a red giant, followed by the
successive swallowing of three relatively massive planets in close orbits,
supplies a simple explanation to all observed peculiarities of this intriguing
object.Comment: 5 pages, 1 LaTex file, 2 .eps figures, accepted for publication in
MNRA
The dissimilar chemical composition of the planet-hosting stars of the XO-2 binary system
Using high-quality spectra of the twin stars in the XO-2 binary system, we
have detected significant differences in the chemical composition of their
photospheres. The differences correlate strongly with the elements' dust
condensation temperature. In XO-2N, volatiles are enhanced by about 0.015 dex
and refractories are overabundant by up to 0.090 dex. On average, our error bar
in relative abundance is 0.012 dex. We present an early metal-depletion
scenario in which the formation of the gas giant planets known to exist around
these stars is responsible for a 0.015 dex offset in the abundances of all
elements while 20 M_Earth of non-detected rocky objects that formed around
XO-2S explain the additional refractory-element difference. An alternative
explanation involves the late accretion of at least 20 M_Earth of planet-like
material by XO-2N, allegedly as a result of the migration of the hot Jupiter
detected around that star. Dust cleansing by a nearby hot star as well as age
or Galactic birthplace effects can be ruled out as valid explanations for this
phenomenon.Comment: ApJ, in press. Complete linelist (Table 3) available in the "Other
formats -> Source" downloa
IDENTIFIKACE ODRŮD ŘEPKY OLEJNÉ POUŽITÍM AFLP MARKERŮ
A new type of molecular marker, fluorescence-based AFLP, was evaluated for its ability to identify oilseed rape cultivars. Each of the six tested AFLP combinations detected polymorphisms, the best combination (MCAA/ E-ACT) had 26% of polymorphic peaks from a total of 90 peaks and could distinguish analysed cultivars, and 4 out of 5 DH lines. The results presented here show that florescence-based AFLP was, for the purposes of oil seed rape cultivar fingerprinting, a very suitable approach.Nový typ molekulárního markeru AFLP, založeného na fluorescenci, byl používán pro svou schopnost identifikovat odrůdy a homogenitu DH linií řepky olejné. Každá ze šesti testovaných AFLP kombinací
detekovala polymorfismy, nejlepší kombinace (M-CAA/E-ACT) měla 26% polymorfních píků z celkového počtu 90 a bylo možné rozlišit analyzované odrůdy a 4 z 5 DH linií. Genetická podobnost byla vypočítána použitím klastrové analýzy (metody UPGMA). Ukázalo se, že genetická podobnost mezi DH liniemi je nízká, i když tyto linie byly získány mikrosporogenezí. PCO analýza odrůd ukázala dva uzavřené klastery. Pouze u odrůdy Arabela byla zaznamenána větší odlišnost
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