Comparative analysis of extreme ultraviolet solar radiation proxies during minimum activity levels

Four extreme ultraviolet(EUV)solar radiation proxies(Magnesium II core-to-wing ratio(MgII),Lymanαflux(Fα),10.7-cm solar radio flux(F10.7),and sunspot number(Rz))were analyzed during the last four consecutive solar activity minima to investigate how they differ during minimum periods and how well they represent solar EUV radiation.Their variability within each minimum and between minima was compared by considering monthly means.A comparison was also made of their role in filtering the effect of solar activity from the critical frequency of the ionospheric F2 layer,foF2,which at mid to low latitudes depends mainly on EUV solar radiation.The last two solar cycles showed unusually low EUV radiation levels according to the four proxies.Regarding the connection between the EUV“true”variation and that of solar proxies,according to the foF2 filtering analysis,MgII and Fαbehaved in a more stable and suitable way,whereas Rz and F10.7 could be overestimating EUV levels during the last two minima,implying they would both underestimate the inter-minima difference of EUV when compared with the first two minima.

Characteristics of laser induced discharge tin plasma and its extreme ultraviolet radiation

In this paper,a CO_(2) laser induced discharge plasma extreme ultraviolet(EUV)source experimental device was established.The optical emission spectroscopy was used to diagnose the characteristics of the plasma,and the evolution of electron temperature and electron density with time was obtained.The influence of discharge voltage on plasma parameters was analyzed and discussed.The EUV radiation characteristics of the plasma were investigated by self-made grazing incidence EUV spectrometer.The EUV radiation intensity and conversion efficiency were discussed.

Characteristics and mechanisms of the annual asymmetry of thermospheric mass density

In this paper, globally-averaged, thermospheric total mass density, derived from the orbits of -5000 objects at 250, 400, and 550 km that were tracked from 1967 to 2006, has been used to quantitatively study the annual asymmetry of thermospheric mass density and its mechanism（s）. The results show that thermospheric mass density had a significant annual asymmetry, which changed from year to year. The annual asymmetry at the three altitudes varied synchronously and its absolute value increased with altitudes. The results suggest that there is an annual asymmetry in solar EUV radiation that is caused by the difference in the Sun-Earth distance between the two solstices and the random variation of solar activity within a year. This change in radiation results in an annual change in the thermospheric temperature and thus the scale height of the neutral gas, and is the main cause of the annual asymmetry of thermospheric mass density. The annual asymmetry of mass density increases with altitude because of the accumulating effect of the changes in neutral temperature and scale height in the vertical direction.

Performance of a polarizer using synthetic mica crystal in the 12–25 nm wavelength range

To develop polarizer functioning in the extreme ultraviolet （EUV） and soft X-ray region, the polarization performance of synthetic mica has been investigated theoretically with a simulation code using Fresnel equations and optical constants from the Henke database. The reflectance of synthetic mica crystal for s and p polarization was measured to investigate its polarization performance in a home-made synchrotron radiation soft X-ray polarimeter at beamline 3W1B, Beijing Synchrotron Radiation Facility （BSRF）. The reflectivity of the synthetic mica crystal at an angle of grazing incidence of 48° was obtained from the experimental data, which is about 4.8 × 10-3 at 25 nm and 6.0 × 10-4 at 12 nm, and the linear polarizance of the X-ray reflected by the synthetic mica crystal that we measured using an analyzer-rotating method increases from 80% to 96.6% in this EUV region, while higher than 98.2% in the simulation. The result indicates that this synthetic mica crystal works as a practical polarizer in this EUV region of 12-25 nm, and also in an extensive wavelength region higher than 25 nm.