Source Regions of Coronal Mass Ejections

Observations of the solar corona with the Large Angle Spectrometric Coronograph (LASCO) and Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) instruments on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) provide an unprecedented opportunity to study coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from their initiation through their evolution out to 30 \rsun. The objective of this study is to gain an understanding of the source regions from which the CMEs emanate. To this end, we have developed a list of 32 CMEs whose source regions are located on the solar disk and are well observed in EIT 195 {\AA} data during the period from so lar minimum in January 1996 through the rising part of the cycle in May 1998. We compare the EIT source regions with photospheric magnetograms from the Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) instrument on SOHO and the NSO/Kitt Peak Observatory and also with H$\alpha$ data from various sources. The overall results of our study show that 41% of the CME related transients observed are associated with active regions and have no prominence eruptions, 44% are associated with eruptions of prominences embedded in active regions and 15% are associated with eruptions of prominences outside active regions. Those CMEs that do not involve prominence eruptions originate in active regions both with and without prominences. We describe 6 especially well observed events. These case studies suggest that active region CMEs (without eruptive prominences) are associated with active regions with lifetimes between 11--80 days. They are also often associated with small scale emerging or cancelling flux over timescales of 6--7 hours. CMEs associated with active region prominence eruptions, on the other hand, are typically associated with old active regions with lifetimes $\sim$ 6-7 months.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ, scheduled for Nov 1, 2001 issu

Nucleophilicity/Electrophilicity Excess in Analyzing Molecular Electronics

Intramolecular electron transfer capability of all metal aromatic and anti-aromatic aluminum cluster compounds is studied in terms of density functional theory based global and local reactivity descriptors. This study will provide important inputs towards the fabrication of the material required for molecular electronics.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, 13 table

Reasons for female neonaticide in India

Invited commentary on ‘Neonaticide in India and the stigma of female gender: report of two cases’, Mishra et al

The structure of dark matter halos in hierarchical clustering theories

During hierarchical clustering, smaller masses generally collapse earlier than larger masses and so are denser on the average. The core of a small mass halo could be dense enough to resist disruption and survive undigested, when it is incorporated into a bigger object. We explore the possibility that a nested sequence of undigested cores in the center of the halo, which have survived the hierarchical, inhomogeneous collapse to form larger and larger objects, determines the halo structure in the inner regions. For a flat universe with $P(k) \propto k^n$, scaling arguments then suggest that the core density profile is, $\rho \propto r^{-\alpha}$ with $\alpha = (9+3n)/(5+n)$. But whether such behaviour obtains depends on detailed dynamics. We first examine the dynamics using a fluid approach to the self-similar collapse solutions for the dark matter phase space density, including the effect of velocity dispersions. We highlight the importance of tangential velocity dispersions to obtain density profiles shallower than $1/r^2$ in the core regions. If tangential velocity dispersions in the core are constrained to be less than the radial dispersion, a cuspy core density profile shallower than 1/r cannot obtain, in self-similar collapse. We then briefly look at the profiles of the outer halos in low density cosmological models where the total halo mass is convergent. Finally, we analyze a suite of dark halo density and velocity dispersion profiles obtained in cosmological N-body simulations of models with n= 0, -1 and -2. We find that the core-density profiles of dark halos, show considerable scatter in their properties, but nevertheless do appear to reflect a memory of the initial power spectrum, with steeper initial spectra producing flatter core profiles. (Abridged)Comment: 31 pages, 7 figures, submitted to Ap

Numerical control of laser processing and simulation of microstructures and temperature profiles - a fuzzy approach

The use of high power density laser beam for surface modification of many important alloys often leads to appreciable changes in the composition & tribological properties. These changes are dependent on process variables such as beam size, energy, scan rate, laser mode and the Chemistry and metallurgy of steel. Appro-ximate solutions to heat flow equations are combined with kinetic models to predict the microstructures and temperature distributions. A transient fuzzy logic based heat flow model is developed to predict temperature zones instead of discrete temperature calculations. A set of separate membership functions are formulated for dete-rmining temperature zones by means of continuous iteration process the same method is adopted to evaluate micro-structures for a specific temperature zone by incorporat-ing the kinetic and thermal datas available. Alloy steel of CK45 grade and stainless steel of 316 grade are used for this investigations and the results obtained are compared with the temperature profiles obtained from conventional methods and hence their microstructures. An attempt is also made to compute the dendrite cell width distribution during laser melt solidification of 316 LN steel by means of the above mentioned method