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Register a new userJHelioviewer - Time-dependent 3D visualisation of solar and heliospheric data
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Context. Solar observatories are providing the world-wide community with a wealth of data, covering large time ranges, multiple viewpoints, and returning large amounts of data. In particular, the large volume of SDO data presents challenges: it is available only from a few repositories, and full-disk, full-cadence data for reasonable durations of scientific interest are difficult to download practically due to their size and download data rates available to most users. From a scientists perspective this poses three problems: accessing, browsing and finding interesting data as efficiently as possible. Aims. To address these challenges, we have developed JHelioviewer, a visualisation tool for solar data based on the JPEG2000 compression standard and part of the open source ESA/NASA Helioviewer Project. Since the first release of JHelioviewer, the scientific functionality of the software has been extended significantly, and the objective of this paper is to highlight these improvements. Methods. The JPEG2000 standard offers useful new features that facilitate the dissemination and analysis of high-resolution image data and offers a solution to the challenge of efficiently browsing petabyte-scale image archives. The JHelioviewer software is open source, platform independent and extendable via a plug-in architecture. Results. With JHelioviewer, users can visualise the Sun for any time period between September 1991 and today. They can perform basic image processing in real time, track features on the Sun and interactively overlay magnetic field extrapolations. The software integrates solar event data and a time line display. As a first step towards supporting science planning of the upcoming Solar Orbiter mission, JHelioviewer offers a virtual camera model that enables users to set the vantage point to the location of a spacecraft or celestial body at any given time.
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Among many other measurable quantities the summer of 2009 saw a considerable low in the radiative output of the Sun that was temporally coincident with the largest cosmic ray flux ever measured at 1AU. A hemispheric asymmetry in magnetic activity is clearly observed and its evolution monitored and the resulting (prolonged) magnetic imbalance must have had a considerable impact on the structure and energetics of the heliosphere. While we cannot uniquely tie the variance and scale of the surface magnetism to the dwindling radiative and particulate output of the star, or the increased cosmic ray flux through the 2009 minimum, the timing of the decline and rapid recovery in early 2010 would appear to inextricably link them. These observations support a picture where the Suns hemispheres are significantly out of phase with each other. Studying historical sunspot records with this picture in mind shows that the northern hemisphere has been leading since the middle of the last century and that the hemispheric dominance has changed twice in the past 130 years. The observations presented give clear cause for concern, especially with respect to our present understanding of the processes that produce the surface magnetism in the (hidden) solar interior - hemispheric asymmetry is the normal state - the strong symmetry shown in 1996 was abnormal. Further, these observations show that the mechanism(s) which create and transport the magnetic flux magnetic flux are slowly changing with time and, it appears, with only loose coupling across the equator such that those asymmetries can persist for a considerable time. As the current asymmetry persists and the basal energetics of the system continue to dwindle we anticipate new radiative and particulate lows coupled with increased cosmic ray fluxes heading into the next solar minimum.
Solar Orbiter is the first space mission observing the solar plasma both in situ and remotely, from a close distance, in and out of the ecliptic. The ultimate goal is to understand how the Sun produces and controls the heliosphere, filling the Solar System and driving the planetary environments. With six remote-sensing and four in-situ instrument suites, the coordination and planning of the operations are essential to address the following four top-level science questions: (1) What drives the solar wind and where does the coronal magnetic field originate? (2) How do solar transients drive heliospheric variability? (3) How do solar eruptions produce energetic particle radiation that fills the heliosphere? (4) How does the solar dynamo work and drive connections between the Sun and the heliosphere? Maximising the missions science return requires considering the characteristics of each orbit, including the relative position of the spacecraft to Earth (affecting downlink rates), trajectory events (such as gravitational assist manoeuvres), and the phase of the solar activity cycle. Furthermore, since each orbits science telemetry will be downloaded over the course of the following orbit, science operations must be planned at mission level, rather than at the level of individual orbits. It is important to explore the way in which those science questions are translated into an actual plan of observations that fits into the mission, thus ensuring that no opportunities are missed. First, the overarching goals are broken down into specific, answerable questions along with the required observations and the so-called Science Activity Plan (SAP) is developed to achieve this. The SAP groups objectives that require similar observations into Solar Orbiter Observing Plans (SOOPs), resulting in a strategic, top-level view of the optimal opportunities for science observations during the mission lifetime.
The solar wind speed plays a key role in the transport of CME out of the Sun and ultimately determines the arrival time of CME-driven shocks in the heliosphere. Here, we develop an empirical model of the solar wind parameters at the inner boundary (18 solar radii, Rs) used in our global, 3D MHD model (G3DMHD) or other equivalent ones. The model takes solar magnetic field maps at 2.5 Rs (which is based on the Potential Field Source Surface, PFSS model) and interpolates the solar wind plasma and field out to 18 Rs using the algorithm of Wang and Sheeley [1990a]. A formula V_{18Rs} = V1 + V2 fs^{alpha} is used to calculate the solar wind speed at 18 Rs, where V1 is in a range of 150-350 km/s, V2 is in the range of 250-500 km/s, and fs is an expansion factor, which was derived from the Wang and Sheeley (WS) algorithm at 2.5 Rs. To estimate the solar wind density and temperature at 18 Rs, we assume an incompressible solar wind and a constant total pressure. The three free parameters are obtained by adjusting simulation results to match in-situ observations (Wind) for more than 54 combination of V1, V2 and {alpha} during a quiet solar wind interval, CR2082. We found V18Rs = (150 +/- 50) + (500 +/- 100) fs^-0.4 km/s performs reasonably well in predicting solar wind parameters at 1 AU not just for CR 2082 but other quiet solar period. Comparing results from the present study with those from WSA [Arge et al. 2000; 2004] we conclude that i) Results of using V_{18Rs} with the full rotation data (FR) as input to drive G3DMHD model is better than the results of WSA using FR, or daily updated. ii) When using a modified daily updated 4-day-advanced solar wind speed predictions WSA performs slightly better than our G3DMHD. iii) When using V_{18Rs} as input, G3DMHD model performs much better than the WSA formula. We argue the necessity of the extra angular width ({theta}b) parameter used in WSA.
We study the time-dependent modulation effect and derive the local interstellar spectra (LIS) for the cosmic ray (CR) proton, helium, boron and carbon. A two-dimensional modulation model including the variation of the interplanetary environment with time is adopted to describe modulation process. The propagation equation of CRs in the heliosphere is numerically solved by the package Solarprop. We derive the LIS by fitting the latest results of several experiments, including Voyager 1, PAMELA, BESS-POLARII and ACE, during low solar activity periods. We further study the modulation in the polarity reversal periods with the PAMELA proton data. We find that the rigidity dependence of the diffusion coefficient is critical to explain the modulation effect during reversal periods. Our results also indicate a power law relation between the diffusion coefficient and the magnitude of the heliospheric magnetic field (HMF) at the Earth.
Magnetic reconnection, a fundamentally important process in many aspects of astrophysics, is believed to be initiated by the tearing instability of an electric current sheet, a region where magnetic field abruptly changes direction and electric currents build up. Recent studies have suggested that the amount of magnetic shear in these structures is a critical parameter for the switch-on nature of magnetic reconnection in the solar atmosphere, at fluid spatial scales much larger than kinetic scales. We present results of simulations of reconnection in 3D current sheets with conditions appropriate to the solar corona. Using high-fidelity simulations, we follow the evolution of the linear and non-linear 3D tearing instability, leading to reconnection. We find that, depending on the parameter space, magnetic shear can play a vital role in the onset of significant energy release and heating via non-linear tearing. Two regimes in our study exist, dependent on whether the current sheet is longer or shorter than the wavelength of the fastest growing parallel mode (in the corresponding infinite system), thus determining whether sub-harmonics are present in the actual system. In one regime, where the fastest growing parallel mode has sub-harmonics, the non-linear interaction of these sub-harmonics and the coalescence of 3D plasmoids dominates the non-linear evolution, with magnetic shear playing only a weak role in the amount of energy released. In the second regime, where the fastest growing parallel mode has no-sub-harmonics, then only strongly sheared current sheets, where oblique mode are strong enough to compete with the dominant parallel mode, show any significant energy release. We expect both regimes to exist on the Sun, and so our results have important consequences for the the question of reconnection onset in different solar physics applications.
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