The Twist of the Draped Interstellar Magnetic Field Ahead of the Heliopause: A Magnetic Reconnection Driven Rotational Discontinuity

Based on the difference between the orientation of the interstellar $B_{ISM}$ and the solar magnetic fields, there was an expectation that the magnetic field direction would rotate dramatically across the heliopause (HP). However, the Voyager 1 spacecraft measured very little rotation across the HP. Previously we showed that the $B_{ISM}$ twists as it approaches the HP and acquires a strong T component (East-West). Here we establish that reconnection in the eastern flank of the heliosphere is responsible for the twist. On the eastern flank the solar magnetic field has twisted into the positive N direction and reconnects with the Southward pointing component of the $B_{ISM}$. Reconnection drives a rotational discontinuity (RD) that twists the $B_{ISM}$ into the -T direction and propagates upstream in the interstellar medium towards the nose. The consequence is that the N component of $B_{ISM}$ is reduced in a finite width band upstream of the HP. Voyager 1 currently measures angles ($\delta=sin^{-1}(B_{N}/B)$) close to solar values. We present MHD simulations to support this scenario, suppressing reconnection in the nose region while allowing it in the flanks, consistent with recent ideas about reconnection suppression from diamagnetic drifts. The jump in plasma $\beta$ (the plasma to magnetic pressure) across the nose of HP is much greater than in the flanks because the heliosheath $\beta$ is greater there than in the flanks. Large-scale reconnection is therefore suppressed in the nose but not at the flanks. Simulation data suggest that $B_{ISM}$ will return to its pristine value $10-15~AU$ past the HP.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures, submitte

Can we replicate the findings of EEF trials using school level comparative interrupted time series evaluations? Non-technical report

This report focuses on whether one particular non-experimental method can reproduce the results from experimental evaluations: the comparative interrupted time series (CITS) design. The basic idea is to compare the way in which outcomes in the treatment group deviate from trend after an intervention is introduced, relative to the way in which outcomes in the control group deviate from trend at the same point in time. Under certain assumptions, the difference between these deviations can be interpreted as the effect of the intervention

Reconciling aerosol light extinction measurements from spaceborne lidar observations and in situ measurements in the Arctic

© Author(s) 2014. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.In this study we investigate to what degree it is possible to reconcile continuously recorded particle light extinction coefficients derived from dry in situ measurements at Zeppelin station (78.92° N, 11.85° E; 475 m above sea level), Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard, that are recalculated to ambient relative humidity, as well as simultaneous ambient observations with the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar with Orthogonal Polarization (CALIOP) aboard the Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) satellite. To our knowledge, this represents the first study that compares spaceborne lidar measurements to optical aerosol properties from short-term in situ observations (averaged over 5 h) on a case-by-case basis. Finding suitable comparison cases requires an elaborate screening and matching of the CALIOP data with respect to the location of Zeppelin station as well as the selection of temporal and spatial averaging intervals for both the ground-based and spaceborne observations. Reliable reconciliation of these data cannot be achieved with the closest-approach method, which is often used in matching CALIOP observations to those taken at ground sites. This is due to the transport pathways of the air parcels that were sampled. The use of trajectories allowed us to establish a connection between spaceborne and ground-based observations for 57 individual overpasses out of a total of 2018 that occurred in our region of interest around Svalbard (0 to 25° E, 75 to 82° N) in the considered year of 2008. Matches could only be established during winter and spring, since the low aerosol load during summer in connection with the strong solar background and the high occurrence rate of clouds strongly influences the performance and reliability of CALIOP observations. Extinction coefficients in the range of 2 to 130 Mmg-1 at 532 nm were found for successful matches with a difference of a factor of 1.47 (median value for a range from 0.26 to 11.2) between the findings of in situ and spaceborne observations (the latter being generally larger than the former). The remaining difference is likely to be due to the natural variability in aerosol concentration and ambient relative humidity, an insufficient representation of aerosol particle growth, or a misclassification of aerosol type (i.e., choice of lidar ratio) in the CALIPSO retrieval.Peer reviewe

Is Canada really an education superpower? The impact of non-participation on results from PISA 2015

The purpose of large-scale international assessments is to compare educational achievement across countries. For such cross-national comparisons to be meaningful, the participating students must be representative of the target population. In this paper, we consider whether this is the case for Canada, a country widely recognised as high performing in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Our analysis illustrates how the PISA 2015 sample for Canada only covers around half of the 15-year-old population, compared to over 90% in countries like Finland, Estonia, Japan and South Korea. We discuss how this emerges from differences in how children with special educational needs are defined and rules for their inclusion in the study, variation in school participation rates and the comparatively high rates of pupils’ absence in Canada during the PISA study. The paper concludes by investigating how Canada’s PISA 2015 rank would change under different assumptions about how the non-participating students would have performed were they to have taken the PISA test

Magnetohydrodynamic simulation of an equatorial dipolar paleomagnetosphere

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/95191/1/jgra17407.pd

Modeling the Young Sun's Solar Wind and its Interaction with Earth's Paleomagnetosphere

We present a focused parameter study of solar wind - magnetosphere interaction for the young Sun and Earth, $~3.5$ Ga ago, that relies on magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations for both the solar wind and the magnetosphere. By simulating the quiescent young Sun and its wind we are able to propagate the MHD simulations up to Earth's magnetosphere and obtain a physically realistic solar forcing of it. We assess how sensitive the young solar wind is to changes in the coronal base density, sunspot placement and magnetic field strength, dipole magnetic field strength and the Sun's rotation period. From this analysis we obtain a range of plausible solar wind conditions the paleomagnetosphere may have been subject to. Scaling relationships from the literature suggest that a young Sun would have had a mass flux different from the present Sun. We evaluate how the mass flux changes with the aforementioned factors and determine the importance of this and several other key solar and magnetospheric variables with respect to their impact on the paleomagnetosphere. We vary the solar wind speed, density, interplanetary magnetic field strength and orientation as well as Earth's dipole magnetic field strength and tilt in a number of steady-state scenarios that are representative of young Sun-Earth interaction. This study is done as a first step of a more comprehensive effort towards understanding the implications of Sun-Earth interaction for planetary atmospheric evolution.Comment: 16 pages, 7 figure

Magnetic polarizability of hadrons from lattice QCD

We extract the magnetic polarizability from the quadratic response of a hadron's mass shift in progressively small static magnetic fields. The calculation is done on a 24x12x12x24 lattice at a = 0.17 fm with an improved gauge action and the clover quark action. The results are compared to those from experiments and models where available.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, contribution to Lattice 2002 (spectrum

Magnetized jets driven by the sun: the structure of the heliosphere revisited

The classic accepted view of the heliosphere is a quiescent, comet-like shape aligned in the direction of the Sun's travel through the interstellar medium (ISM) extending for 1000's of AUs (AU: astronomical unit). Here we show, based on magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations, that the tension (hoop) force of the twisted magnetic field of the sun confines the solar wind plasma beyond the termination shock and drives jets to the North and South very much like astrophysical jets. These jets are deflected into the tail region by the motion of the Sun through the ISM similar to bent galactic jets moving through the intergalactic medium. The interstellar wind blows the two jets into the tail but is not strong enough to force the lobes into a single comet-like tail, as happens to some astrophysical jets (Morsony et al. 2013). Instead, the interstellar wind flows around the heliosphere and into equatorial region between the two jets. As in some astrophysical jets that are kink unstable (Porth et al. 2014) we show here that the heliospheric jets are turbulent (due to large-scale MHD instabilities and reconnection) and strongly mix the solar wind with the ISM beyond 400 AU. The resulting turbulence has important implications for particle acceleration in the heliosphere. The two-lobe structure is consistent with the energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) images of the heliotail from IBEX (McComas et al. 2013) where two lobes are visible in the North and South and the suggestion from the CASSINI (Krimigis et al. 2009, Dialynas et al. 2013) ENAs that the heliosphere is "tailless".Comment: 19 pages, 5 figures; Astrophysical Journal Letters; in pres

Multiple packets of neutral molecules revolving for over a mile

The level of control that one has over neutral molecules in beams dictates their possible applications. Here we experimentally demonstrate that state-selected, neutral molecules can be kept together in a few mm long packet for a distance of over one mile. This is accomplished in a circular arrangement of 40 straight electrostatic hexapoles through which the molecules propagate over 1000 times. Up to 19 packets of molecules have simultaneously been stored in this ring structure. This brings the realization of a molecular low-energy collider within reach

Electrostatic trapping of metastable NH molecules

We report on the Stark deceleration and electrostatic trapping of $^{14}$NH ($a ^1\Delta$) radicals. In the trap, the molecules are excited on the spin-forbidden $A ^3\Pi \leftarrow a ^1\Delta$ transition and detected via their subsequent fluorescence to the $X ^3\Sigma^-$ ground state. The 1/e trapping time is 1.4 $\pm$ 0.1 s, from which a lower limit of 2.7 s for the radiative lifetime of the $a ^1\Delta, v=0,J=2$ state is deduced. The spectral profile of the molecules in the trapping field is measured to probe their spatial distribution. Electrostatic trapping of metastable NH followed by optical pumping of the trapped molecules to the electronic ground state is an important step towards accumulation of these radicals in a magnetic trap.Comment: replaced with final version, added journal referenc