SOLAR LIMB PROMINENCE CATCHER AND TRACKER (SLIPCAT): AN AUTOMATED SYSTEM AND ITS PRELIMINARY STATISTICAL RESULTS
In this paper, we present an automated system, which has the capability to catch and track solar limb prominences based on observations from the extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) 304?? passband. The characteristic parameters and their evolution, including height, position angle, area, length, and brightness, are obtained without manual interventions. By applying the system to the STEREO-B/SECCHI/EUVI 304?? data during 2007 April-2009 October, we obtain a total of 9477 well-tracked prominences and a catalog of these events available online. A detailed analysis of these prominences suggests that the system has a rather good performance. We have obtained several interesting statistical results based on the catalog. Most prominences appear below the latitude of 60? and at the height of about 26 Mm above the solar surface. Most of them are quite stable during the period they are tracked. Nevertheless, some prominences have an upward speed of more than 100 km s?1, and some others show significant downward and/or azimuthal speeds. There are strong correlations among the brightness, area, and height. The expansion of a prominence is probably one major cause of its fading during the rising or erupting process.

title: Critical Height for the Destabilization of Solar Prominences: Statistical Results from STEREO Observations
abstract: At which height is a prominence inclined to be unstable, or where is the most probable critical height for the prominence destabilization? This question was statistically studied based on 362 solar limb prominences well recognized by Solar Limb Prominence Catcher and Tracker from 2007 April to the end of 2009. We found that there are about 71% disrupted prominences (DPs), among which about 42% of them did not erupt successfully and about 89% of them experienced a sudden destabilization process. After a comprehensive analysis of the DPs, we

title: An analytical model probing the internal state of coronal mass ejections based on observations of their expansions and propagations
abstract: In this paper, a generic self-similar flux rope model is proposed to probe the internal state of CMEs in order to understand the thermodynamic process and expansion of CMEs in interplanetary space. Using this model, three physical parameters and their variations with heliocentric distance can be inferred based on coronagraph observations of CMEs' propagation and expansion. One is the polytropic index Γ of the CME plasma, and the other two are the average Lorentz force and the thermal pressure force inside CMEs. By applying the model to the 8 October 2007 CME observed by STEREO/SECCHI, we find that (1) the polytropic index of the CME plasma increased from initially 1.24 to more than 1.35 quickly and then slowly decreased to about 1.34; it suggests that there be continuously heat injected/converted into the CME plasma and the value of Γ tends to be , a critical value inferred from the model for a force-free flux rope; (2) the Lorentz force directed inward while the thermal pressure force outward, and both of them decreased rapidly as the CME moved out; the direction of the two forces reveals that the thermal pressure force is the internal driver of the CME expansion, whereas the Lorentz force prevented the CME from expanding. Some limitations of the model and approximations are discussed meanwhile.

title: Quantitative Analysis of CME Deflections in the Corona
abstract: In this paper, ten CME events viewed by the STEREO twin spacecraft are analyzed to study the deflections of CMEs during their propagation in the corona. Based on the three-dimensional information of the CMEs derived by the graduated cylindrical shell (GCS) model (Thernisien, Howard, and Vourlidas in  2006), it is found that the propagation directions of eight CMEs had changed. By applying the theoretical method proposed by Shen et al. (Solar Phys.269, 389, 2011) to all the CMEs, we found that the deflections are consistent, in strength and direction, with the gradient of the magnetic energy density. There is a positive correlation between the deflection rate and the strength of the magnetic energy density gradient and a weak anti-correlation between the deflection rate and the CME speed. Our results suggest that the deflections of CMEs are mainly controlled by the background magnetic field and can be quantitatively described by the magnetic energy density gradient (MEDG) model.

title: Full halo coronal mass ejections: Do we need to correct the projection effect in terms of velocity?
abstract: The projection effect is one of the biggest obstacles in learning the real properties of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and forecasting their geoeffectiveness. To evaluate the projection effect, 86 full halo CMEs (FHCMEs) listed in the Coordinated Data Analysis Workshop CME catalog from 1 March 2007 to 31 May 2012 are investigated. By applying the Graduated Cylindrical Shell model, we obtain the deprojected values of the propagation velocity, direction, and angular width of these FHCMEs and compare them with the projected values measured in the plane-of-sky. Although these CMEs look full halo in the view angle of SOHO, it is found that their propagation directions and angular widths could vary in a large range, implying projection effect is a major reason causing a CME being halo, but not the only one. Furthermore, the comparison of the deprojected and projected velocities reveals that most FHCMEs originating within 45° of the Sun-Earth line with a projected speed slower than 900 km s−1 suffer from large projection effect, while the FHCMEs originating far from the vicinity of solar disk center or moving faster than 900 km s−1have small projection effect. Thus, for the latter class of FHCMEs, it is not necessary to correct the measured velocities.

title: Statistical study of coronal mass ejection source locations: Understanding CMEs viewed in coronagraphs
abstract: How to properly understand coronal mass ejections (CMEs) viewed in white light coronagraphs is crucial to many relative researches in solar and space physics. The issue is now particularly addressed in this paper through studying the source locations of all the 1078 Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) CMEs listed in Coordinated Data Analysis Workshop (CDAW) CME catalog during 1997–1998 and their correlation with CMEs' apparent parameters. By manually checking LASCO and Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) movies of these CMEs, we find that, except 231 CMEs whose source locations cannot be identified due to poor data, there are 288 CMEs with location identified on the frontside solar disk, 234 CMEs appearing above solar limb, and 325 CMEs without evident eruptive signatures in the field of view of EIT. On the basis of the statistical results of CMEs' source locations, there are four physical issues: (1) the missing rate of CMEs by SOHO LASCO and EIT, (2) the mass of CMEs, (3) the causes of halo CMEs, and (4) the deflections of CMEs in the corona, are exhaustively analyzed. It is found that (1) about 32% frontside CMEs cannot be recognized by SOHO, (2) the brightness of a CME at any heliocentric distance is roughly positively correlated with its speed, and the CME mass derived from the brightness is probably overestimated, (3) both projection effect and violent eruption are the major causes of halo CMEs, and especially for limb halo CMEs the latter is the primary one, and (4) most CMEs deflected toward equator near the solar minimum; these deflections can be classified into three types: the asymmetrical expansion, the nonradial ejection, and the deflected propagation.

title: Results from the Palo Verde neutrino oscillation experiment
abstract: The {nu}(bar sign){sub e} flux and spectrum have been measured at a distance of about 800 m from the reactors of the Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station using a segmented Gd-loaded liquid scintillator detector. Correlated positron-neutron events from the reaction {nu}(bar sign){sub e}p{yields}e{sup +}n were recorded for a period of 200 d including 55 d with one of the three reactors off for refueling. Backgrounds were accounted for by making use of the reactor-on and reactor-off cycles, and also with a novel technique based on the difference between signal and background under reversal of the e{sup +} and n portions of the events. A detailed description of the detector calibration, background subtraction, and data analysis is presented here. Results from the experiment show no evidence for neutrino oscillations. {nu}(bar sign){sub e}{yields}{nu}(bar sign){sub x} oscillations were excluded at 90% C.L. for {delta}m{sup 2}>1.12x10{sup -3} eV{sup 2} for full mixing and sin{sup 2}2{theta}>0.21 for large {delta}m{sup 2}. These results support the conclusion that the observed atmospheric neutrino oscillations do not involve {nu}{sub e}.

title: Three-particle coincidence of the long range pseudorapidity correlation in high energy nucleus-nucleus collisions.
abstract: We report the first three-particle coincidence measurement in pseudorapidity (Δη) between a high transverse momentum (p⊥) trigger particle and two lower p⊥ associated particles within azimuth |Δϕ|<0.7 in square root of s(NN)=200 GeV d+Au and Au+Au collisions. Charge ordering properties are exploited to separate the jetlike component and the ridge (long range Δη correlation). The results indicate that the correlation of ridge particles are uniform not only with respect to the trigger particle but also between themselves event by event in our measured Δη. In addition, the production of the ridge appears to be uncorrelated to the presence of the narrow jetlike component.

title: CONTROLLING THE VERTICAL EMITTANCE COUPLING IN CAMD
abstract: The vertical beam size in the CAMD Light Source, as measured with an X-ray pinhole camera, indicates an emittance coupling ratio of about 1.5%. The coupling parameter has been measured by the betatron tune split when the coupling resonance is fully engaged. It is found that the coupling is increased by the 7 Tesla wiggler, which is known to contain non-linear fields. Attempts to reduce the vertical beam size with a skew quadrupole have not succeeded. It is possible that spurious vertical dispersion and image blurring make large contributions to vertical size measurements.

title: Effects of the variation of mass on fermion localization and resonances on thick branes
abstract: A few years ago, Campos investigated the critical phenomena of thick branes in warped spacetimes . Inspired by his work, we consider a toy model of thick branes generated by a real scalar field with the potential V({phi})=a{phi}{sup 2}-b{phi}{sup 4}+c{phi}{sup 6}, and investigate the variation of the mass parameter a on the branes as well as the localization and resonances of fermions. An interesting result is found: there is a critical value for the mass parameter a, and when the critical value of a is reached the solution of the background scalar field is not unique and has the shape of a double kink. This happens in both cases with and without gravity. It is also shown that the numbers of the bound Kaluza-Klein modes of fermions on the gravity-free brane and the resonant states of fermions on the brane with gravity increase with the value of a.

title: Nonparametric Bayesian Estimation of Periodic Functions
abstract: Many astronomical phenomena exhibit patterns that have periodic behavior. An important step when analyzing data from such processes is the problem of identifying the period: estimating the period of a periodic function based on noisy observations made at irregularly spaced time points. This problem is still a difficult challenge despite extensive study in different disciplines. This paper makes several contributions toward solving this problem. First, we present a nonparametric Bayesian model for period finding, based on Gaussian Processes (GPs), that does not make assumptions on the shape of the periodic function. As our experiments demonstrate, the new model leads to significantly better results in period estimation especially when the light curve does not exhibit sinusoidal shape. Second, we develop a new algorithm for parameter optimization for GP which is useful when the likelihood function is very sensitive to the parameters with numerous local minima, as in the case of period estimation. The algorithm combines gradient optimization with grid search and incorporates several mechanisms to overcome the high computational complexity of GP. Third, we develop a novel approach for using domain knowledge, in the form of a probabilistic generative model, and incorporate it into the period estimation algorithm. Experimental results validate our approach showing significant improvement over existing methods.