Long-Term Sunspot Number Prediction based on EMD Analysis and AR Model

The Empirical Mode Decomposition （EMD） and Auto-Regressive model （AR） are applied to a long-term prediction of sunspot numbers. With the sample data of sunspot numbers from 1848 to 1992, the method is evaluated by examining the measured data of the solar cycle 23 with the prediction： different time scale components are obtained by the EMD method and multi-step predicted values are combined to reconstruct the sunspot number time series. The result is remarkably good in comparison to the predictions made by the solar dynamo and precursor approaches for cycle 23. Sunspot numbers of the coming solar cycle 24 are obtained with the data from 1848 to 2007, the maximum amplitude of the next solar cycle is predicted to be about 112 in 2011-2012.

Paraxial propagation of cosh-Airy vortex beams in chiral medium

Propagation dynamics of the cosh-Airy vortex(CAiV) beams in a chiral medium is investigated analytically with Huygens–Fresnel diffraction integral formula. The results show that the CAiV beams are split into the left circularly polarized vortex(LCPV) beams and the right circularly polarized vortex(RCPV) beams with different propagation trajectories in the chiral medium. We mainly investigate the effect of the cosh parameter on the propagation process of the CAiV beams.The propagation characteristics, including intensity distribution, propagation trajectory, peak intensity, main lobe's intensity, Poynting vector, and angular momentum are discussed in detail. We find that the cosh parameter affects the intensity distribution of the CAiV beams but not its propagation trajectory. As the cosh parameter increases, the distribution areas of the LCPV and RCPV beams become wider, and the side lobe's intensity and peak intensity become larger. Besides, the main lobe's intensity of the LCPV and RCPV beams increase with the increase of the cosh parameter at a farther propagation distance, which is confirmed by the variation trend of the Poynting vector. It is significant that we can vary the cosh parameter to control the intensity distribution, main lobe's intensity, and peak intensity of the CAiV beams without changing the propagation trajectory. Our results may provide some support for applications of the CAiV beams in optical micromanipulation.

Multiple scattering and modeling of laser in fog

When a laser is transmitted in fog, and the water droplets will scatter and absorb the laser, which affects the intensity of the laser transmission and the accuracy of radar detection. Therefore, it is of great significance to study the laser transmission in the fog. At present, the main method of calculating the scattering and attenuation characteristics of fog is based on the radiation transmission theory, which is realized by a large number of numerical calculations or physical simulation methods, which takes time and cannot meet the requirements for obtaining the fast and accurate results. Therefore, in this paper established are a new laser forward attenuation model and backward attenuation model in low visibility fog. It is found that in low visibility environments, the results calculated by the Monte Carlo method are more accurate than those from most of the existing forward attenuation models. For the cases of 0.86-μm, 1.06-μm, 1.315-μm, 10.6-μm typical lasers incident on different fogs with different visibilities, a backscatter model is established, the error between the fitting result and the calculation result is analyzed, the backward attenuation fitting parameters of the new model are tested, and a more accurate fitting result is obtained.

Comparison of three kinds of polarized Bessel vortex beams propagating through uniaxial anisotropic media

A comparison of differently polarized Bessel vortex beams propagating through a uniaxial anisotropic slab is discussed in terms of the vector wave function expansions.The magnitude profiles of electric field components, the transformation of polarization modes, and the distributions of orbital angular momentum(OAM) states of the reflected and transmitted beams for different incident angles are numerically simulated.The results indicate that the magnitude profiles of electric field components for different polarization modes are distinct from each other and have a great dependence on the incident angle,thus the transformation of polarization modes which reflects the change of energy can be affected largely.As compared to the x and circular polarization incidences, the reflected and transmitted beams for the radial polarization incidence suffer the fewest transformation of polarization modes, showing a better energy invariance.The distributions of OAM states of the reflected and transmitted beams for different polarization modes are diverse as well, and the derived OAM states of the transmitted beam for radial polarization present a focusing effect, concentrating on the state between two predominant OAM states.

Numerical study of optical trapping properties of nanoparticle on metallic film with periodic structure

Based on the three-dimensional dispersive finite difference time domain method and Maxwell stress tensor equation,the optical trapping properties of nanoparticle placed on the gold film with periodic circular holes are investigated numerically. Surface plasmon polaritons are excited on the metal-dielectric interface, with particular emphasis on the crucial role in tailoring the optical force acting on a nearby nanoparticle. Utilizing a first order corrected electromagnetic field components for a fundamental Gaussian beam, the incident beam is added into the calculation model of the proposed method. To obtain the detailed trapping properties of nanoparticle, the selected calculations on the effects of beam waist radius, sizes of nanoparticle and circular holes, distance between incident Gaussian beam and gold film, material of nanoparticle and polarization angles of incident wave are analyzed in detail to demonstrate that the optical-trapping force can be explained as a virtual spring which has a restoring force to perform positive and negative forces as a nanoparticle moves closer to or away from the centers of circular holes. The results of optical trapping properties of nanoparticle in the vicinity of the gold film could provide guidelines for further research on the optical system design and manipulation of arbitrary composite nanoparticles.