No Arabic abstract
We succeeded in observing two large spicules simultaneously with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory. One is a spicule seen in the IRIS Mg II slit-jaw images and AIA 304AA images (MgII/304A spicule). The other one is a spicule seen in the 100GHz images obtained with ALMA (100GHz spicule). Although the 100GHz spicule overlapped with the MgII/304A spicule in the early phase, it did not show any corresponding structures in the IRIS Mg II and AIA 304A images after the early phase. It suggests that the spicules are individual events and do not have a physical relationship. To obtain the physical parameters of the 100GHz spicule, we estimate the optical depths as a function of temperature and density using two different methods. One is using the observed brightness temperature by assuming a filling factor, and the other is using an emission model for the optical depth. As a result of comparing them, the kinetic temperature of the plasma and the number density of ionized hydrogens in the 100GHz spicule are ~6800 K and 2.2 x 10^10 cm^-3. The estimated values can explain the absorbing structure in the 193A image, which appear as a counterpart of the 100GHz spicule. These results suggest that the 100GHz spicule presented in this paper is classified to a macrospicule without a hot sheath in former terminology.
Polar brightening of the Sun at radio frequencies has been studied for almost fifty years and yet a disagreement persists between solar atmospheric models and observations. Some observations reported brightening values much smaller than the expected values obtained from the models, with discrepancies being particularly large at millimeter wavelengths. New clues to calibrate the atmospheric models can be obtained with the advent of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) radio interferometer. In this work, we analyzed the lower limit of the polar brightening observed at 100 and 230 GHz by ALMA, during its Science Verification period, 2015 December 16-20. We find that the average polar intensity is higher than the disk intensity at 100 and 230 GHz, with larger brightness intensities at the South pole in eight of the nine maps analyzed. The observational results were compared with calculations of the millimetric limb brightnening emission for two semi-empirical atmospheric models, FAL- C (Fontenla et al. 1993) and SSC (Selhorst et al. 2005a). Both models presented larger limb intensities than the averaged observed values. The intensities obtained with the SSC model were closer to the observations, with polar brightenings of 10.5% and 17.8% at 100 and 230 GHz, respectively. This discrepancy may be due to the presence of chromospheric features (like spicules) at regions close to the limb.
We present observations of the solar chromosphere obtained simultaneously with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS). The observatories targeted a chromospheric plage region of which the spatial distribution (split between strongly and weakly magnetized regions) allowed the study of linear-like structures in isolation, free of contamination from background emission. Using these observations in conjunction with a radiative magnetohydrodynamic 2.5D model covering the upper convection zone all the way to the corona that considers non-equilibrium ionization effects, we report the detection of an on-disk chromospheric spicule with ALMA and confirm its multithermal nature.
We analyze existing optical data in the superconducting state of LiFeAs at $T =$ 4 K, to recover its electron-boson spectral density. A maximum entropy technique is employed to extract the spectral density $I^2chi(omega)$ from the optical scattering rate. Care is taken to properly account for elastic impurity scattering which can importantly affect the optics in an $s$-wave superconductor, but does not eliminate the boson structure. We find a robust peak in $I^2chi(omega)$ centered about $Omega_R cong$ 8.0 meV or 5.3 $k_B T_c$ (with $T_c =$ 17.6 K). Its position in energy agrees well with a similar structure seen in scanning tunneling spectroscopy (STS). There is also a peak in the inelastic neutron scattering (INS) data at this same energy. This peak is found to persist in the normal state at $T =$ 23 K. There is evidence that the superconducting gap is anisotropic as was also found in low temperature angular resolved photoemission (ARPES) data.
Solar spicules are the fundamental magnetic structures in the chromosphere and considered to play a key role in channelling the chromosphere and corona. Recently, it was suggested by De Pontieu et al. that there were two types of spicules with very different dynamic properties, which were detected by space- time plot technique in the Ca ii H line (3968 A) wavelength from Hinode/SOT observations. Type I spicule, with a 3-7 minute lifetime, undergoes a cycle of upward and downward motion; in contrast, Type II spicule fades away within dozens of seconds, without descending phase. We are motivated by the fact that for a spicule with complicated 3D motion, the space-time plot, which is made through a slit on a fixed position, could not match the spicule behavior all the time and might lose its real life story. By revisiting the same data sets, we identify and trace 105 and 102 spicules in quiet sun (QS) and coronal hole (CH), respectively, and obtain their statistical dynamic properties. First, we have not found a single convincing example of Type II spicules. Secondly, more than 60% of the identified spicules in each region show a complete cycle, i.e., majority spicules are Type I. Thirdly, the lifetime of spicules in QS and CH are 148 s and 112 s, respectively, but there is no fundamental lifetime difference between the spicules in QS and CH reported earlier. Therefore, the suggestion of coronal heating by Type II spicules should be taken with cautions. Subject headings: Sun: chromosphere Sun:transition region Sun:corona
We analyze a sample of 12 HST-selected edge-on protoplanetary disks for which the vertical extent of the emission layers can be constrained directly. We present ALMA high angular resolution continuum images (0.1arcsec) of these disks at two wavelengths, 0.89mm and 2.06mm (respectively ALMA bands 7 and 4), supplemented with archival band 6 data (1.33mm) where available. For most sources, the millimeter continuum emission is more compact than the scattered light, both in the vertical and radial directions. Six sources are resolved along their minor axis in at least one millimeter band, providing direct information on the vertical distribution of the millimeter grains. For the second largest disk of the sample, the significant difference in vertical extent between band 7 and band 4 suggests efficient size-selective vertical settling of large grains. Furthermore, the only Class I object in our sample shows evidence of flaring in the millimeter. Along the major axis, all disks are well resolved. Four of them are larger in band 7 than in band 4 in the radial direction, and three have a similar radial extent in all bands. For all disks, we also derive the millimeter brightness temperature and spectral index maps. We find that the disks are likely optically thick and that the dust emission reveals low brightness temperatures in most cases (<10K). The integrated spectral indices are similar to those of disks at lower inclination. The comparison of a generic radiative transfer disk model with our data shows that at least 3 disks are consistent with a small millimeter dust scale height, of a few au (measured at r=100au). This is in contrast with the more classical value of h_gsim10au derived from scattered light images and from gas line measurements. These results confirm, by direct observations, that large (millimeter) grains are subject to significant vertical settling in protoplanetary disks.