Dynamics of the charged particles released from a Sun-grazing comet in the solar corona

The sun-grazing comet C/2011 W3(Lovejoy)showed a distorted,unconventional tail morphology near its perihelion(1.2Rs).Based on the“Solar Corona and Inner Heliosphere”modeling result of the magnetic field and plasma dynamics in the solar corona,we use the Runge-Kutta method to simulate the moving trajectory of charged dust and ion particles released at different positions from the C/2011 W3 orbit.We find that the dust particles near the sun,which are subject to a strong magnetic Lorentz force,travel differently from their counterparts distant from the sun,where the latter are mainly affected by the solar gravitational force and radiation pressure.According to the simulation results,we propose that the magnetic mirror effect can rebound the charged dust particles back away from the sun and be regarded as one crucial cause of the dust-free zone formation.We find that ions mainly move along magnetic field lines at an acute angle to the comet's direction of motion.The cometary ions'movement direction was determined by the comet's velocity and the coronal magnetic field,which are responsible for the C/2011 W3’s unique comet tail shape near perihelion.Additionally,the ion particles also experience perpendicular drift motion,mainly dominated by the electric field drift,which is similar to and can be used to approximate the solar wind's transverse velocity at its source region.

Prediction of solar activities:Sunspot numbers and solar magnetic synoptic maps

The evolution of solar magnetic fields is significant for understanding and predicting solar activities.And our knowledge of solar magnetic fields largely depends on the photospheric magnetic field.In this paper,based on the spherical harmonic expansion of the photospheric magnetic field observed by Wilcox Solar Observatory,we analyze the time series of spherical harmonic coefficients and predict Sunspot Number as well as synoptic maps for Solar Cycle 25.We find that solar maximum years have complex short-period disturbances,and the time series of coefficient g_(7)~0 is nearly in-phase with Sunspot Number,which may be related to solar meridional circulation.Utilizing Long Short-Term Memory networks(LSTM),our prediction suggests that the maximum of Solar Cycle 25 is likely to occur in June 2024 with an error of 8 months,the peak sunspot number may be 166.9±22.6,and the next solar minimum may occur around January 2031.By incorporating Empirical Mode Decomposition,we enhance our forecast of synoptic maps truncated to Order 5,validating their relative reliability.This prediction not only addresses a gap in forecasting the global distribution of the solar magnetic field but also holds potential reference value for forthcoming solar observation plans.

Observational evidences of wave excitation and inverse cascade in a distant Earth foreshock region

The foreshock with nascent plasma turbulence is regarded as a fascinating region to understand basic plasma physical processes, e.g., wave-particle interactions as well as wave-wave couplings. Although there have been plenty of intensive studies on this topic, some key clues about the physical processes still lack observations. A relatively comprehensive case study with some new observations is presented in this work based on the WIND spacecraft observations. In this case, upstream energetic protons were drifting at tens of Alfvén speed with respect to the background plasma protons. When looking at the magnetic wave activities, we find the co-existence of high-frequency(0.1-0.5 Hz) large-amplitude right-hand polarized(RHP) waves and lowfrequency(0.02-0.1 Hz) small-amplitude left-hand polarized(LHP) waves in the spacecraft(SC) frame. The observed anticorrelation between magnetic and velocity fluctuations along with the sunward magnetic field direction indicates that the lowfrequency LHP waves in the SC frame are in fact the sunward upstream RHP Alfvénic waves in the solar wind frame. This new observation corroborates the applicability of theories about plasma non-resonance instability and inverse cascade to the foreshock region, where the downstream high-frequency RHP parent waves are excited by the upstream energetic protons through non-resonance instability and the low-frequency RHP daughter waves are generated by the parent waves due to nonlinear parametric instability. Furthermore, enhanced downstream energetic proton fluxes are inferred to result from scattering of the upstream protons by the nascent turbulent fluctuations. Therefore, some critical clues about the newborn turbulence in the foreshock are provided in this work.