Revision of Solar Spicule Classification
Solar spicules are the fundamental magnetic structures in the chromosphere and may play a key role in channeling 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 the space-time plot technique in the Ca II H line (3968 angstrom) wavelength from Hinode/Solar Optical Telescope observations. A "Type I" spicule with a 3-7-minute lifetime undergoes a cycle of upward and downward motions; by contrast, a "Type II" spicule fades away within dozens of seconds without a descending phase. We are motivated by the fact that for a spicule with complicated three-dimensional 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 the 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. Second, more than 60% of the identified spicules in each region show a complete cycle, i.e., the majority are "Type I" spicules. Third, the lifetimes of the spicules in the QS and CH are 148 s and 112 s, respectively, but there is no fundamental lifetime difference between the spicules in the QS and CH reported earlier. Therefore, the suggestion of coronal heating by "Type II" spicules should be taken with caution.

title: Ionized ultraviolet and soft X-ray absorption in the low-redshift active galactic nucleus PG 1126−041
abstract: We present here the analysis of ultraviolet spectra from IUE and an X-ray spectrum from ROSAT PSPC observations of the X-ray-weak, far-infrared-loud AGN, PG 1126−041 (Mrk 1298). The first UV spectra taken in 1992 June, simultaneously with ROSAT, show strong absorption lines of N v, C iv and Si iv, extending over a velocity range from −1000 to −5000 km s−1 with respect to the corresponding line centre. Our analysis shows that the broad emission-line region (BELR) is, at least partially, covered by the material causing these absorption lines. In the IUE spectrum taken in 1995 January, the continuum was a factor of 2 brighter and the UV absorption lines are found to be considerably weaker than in 1992, but little variation in the emission-line fluxes is found. With UV spectral indices of αUV≃1.82 and 1.46 for the 1992 and 1995 data, the far-UV spectrum is steep. Based on the emission-line ratios and the broad-band spectral energy distribution, we argue that the steepness of the UV spectrum is unlikely to be caused by reddening. 
 
 
 
The soft X-ray emission in the ROSAT band is weak. A simple power-law model yields a very poor fit with a UV-to-X-ray spectral index αUVX=2.3. Highly ionized (warm) absorption is suggested by the ROSAT data. After correcting for a warm absorber, the optical to X-ray spectral slope is close to the average of αUVX≃1.67 for radio-quiet quasars. 
 
 
 
From photoionization calculations we find the following results. (1) A single-zone absorption model cannot explain simultaneously the UV absorption lines and the ionized X-ray absorption if metal abundances are solar. Furthermore, in order to be consistent with the equivalent width of the observed Lyα absorption line, the turbulent velocity of the warm absorber must be less than 190 km s−1, which imposes serious constraints on a disc wind model. (2) The UV absorption lines and their variability cannot be explained by a single-zone model with solar abundances and the large variability in the absorption lines suggests that C iv and N v absorption lines are not severely saturated. (3) The absorption of the ionizing continuum by warm material strongly affects the emission-line spectrum.

title: Measurement of CC interactions produced by ${}^8$B solar neutrinos at SNO

title: How Saturated Are Absorption Lines in the Broad Absorption Line Quasar PG 1411+442?
abstract: Recently, convincing evidence was found for extremely large X-ray absorption by column densities greater than 1023 cm-2 in broad absorption line quasars. One consequence of this is that any soft X-ray emission from these QSOs would be the scattered light or leaked light from partially covering absorbing material. A detection of the unabsorbed soft X-ray and absorbed hard X-ray component will allow us to determine the total column density as well as the effective covering factor of the absorbing material, which are difficult to obtain from the UV absorption lines. Brinkmann et al. recently showed that both the unabsorbed and absorbed components are detected in the nearby very bright broad absorption line quasar PG 1411+442. In this Letter, we make a further analysis of the broadband X-ray spectrum and the UV spectrum from the Hubble Space Telescope and demonstrate that broad absorption lines are completely saturated at the bottom of absorption troughs.

title: The X-Ray Absorber in Broad Absorption Line Quasars
abstract: Recent observations of Broad Absorption Line (BAL) quasars demonstrated that the soft X-ray emission of these objects is extremely weak, and convincing evidence for very strong absorption by a high column density (~1023.5 cm-2) was obtained for PG 1411+442, even though it is one of the few BAL QSOs strongly detected in soft X-rays. This paper examines the ionization status and geometry of the X-ray absorber by combining the properties of the UV lines with the X-ray continuum absorption. We show that the gas has to have large column densities in ions of major UV absorption lines, such as C IV, N V, O VI, and Ne VIII, in order to have sufficient opacity around 0.2-0.35 keV. The UV absorption lines have to be saturated if the X-ray absorber intersects the line of sight to the UV continuum emission region. A uniformly covering UV and X-ray absorption model can be constructed for PG 1411+442, but in some other soft X-ray-detected BAL QSOs, such as PG 1001+054, the observed line optical depth is much lower than expected from the X-ray-absorbing material. We propose a scheme in which a substantial fraction of the line of sight to the continuum source may be covered by either an optically thick flow or clouds in a narrow velocity range, but in which the total covering factor of either the whole flow or all clouds is close to unity. The absorber can contribute significantly to the extremely highly ionized emission lines, such as O VI λλ1032/1037 and Ne VIII λλ770/780, if it covers a substantial fraction of solid angle and if the density is higher than 108 cm-3. However, it has very little impact on the medium- and low-ionization UV lines such as N V and C IV. The profiles of Ne VIII and O VI lines may be indicators for the kinematics of the X-ray absorber in QSOs. The observed Ne VIII line profiles in QSOs suggest that the velocity of the gas projected onto our line of sight is similar to that seen in the outflows of the UV BALs.

title: Two-Current-Sheet Reconnection Model of Interdependent Flare and Coronal Mass Ejection
abstract: Time-dependent resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulations are carried out to study a flux rope eruption caused by magnetic reconnection with implication in coexistent flare-CME (coronal mass ejection) events. An early result obtained in a recent analysis of double catastrophe of a flux rope system is used as the initial condition, in which an isolated flux rope coexists with two current sheets: a vertical one below and a transverse one above the flux rope. The flux rope erupts when reconnection takes place in the current sheets, and the flux rope dynamics depends on the reconnection sequence in the two current sheets. Three cases are discussed: reconnection occurs (1) simultaneously in the two current sheets, (2) first in the transverse one and then in the vertical one, and (3) in an order opposite that of case 2. Such a two-current-sheet reconnection exhibits characteristics of both magnetic breakout for CME initiation and the standard flare model. We argue that both breakout-like and tether-cutting reconnections could be important for CME eruptions and associated surface activities.

title: Periodicities in Solar Coronal Mass Ejections
abstract: Mid-term quasi-periodicities in solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) during the mostrecent solar maximum cycle 23 are reported here for the ﬁrst time using the four-year data (February 5, 1999 to February 10, 2003) of the Large Angle SpectrometricCoronagraph (LASCO) onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Inparallel, mid-term quasi-periodicities in solar X-ray ﬂares (class >M5.0) from theGeosynchronous Operational Environment Satellites (GOES) and in daily averages ofAp index for geomagnetic disturbances from the World Data Center (WDC) at theInternationalAssociation for Geomagnetism andAeronomy (IAGA)are alsoexaminedfor the same four-year time span. By Fourier power spectral analyses, the CME dataappears to contain signiﬁcant power peaks at periods of ∼ 358 ± 38, ∼ 272 ± 26,∼ 196±13 days and so forth, while except for the ∼ 259±24-day period, X-ray solarﬂares of class >∼ M5.0 show the familiar Rieger-type quasi-periods at ∼ 157 ± 11,∼ 122± 5, ∼ 98±3 days and shorter ones until ∼ 34±0.5 days. In the data of dailyaverages of Ap index, the two signiﬁcant peaks at periods ∼ 273±26 and ∼ 187±12days (the latter is most prominent) could imply that CMEs (periods at ∼ 272±26and∼ 196 ± 13 days) may be proportionally correlated with quasi-periodic geomagneticstorm disturbances; at the speculative level, the ∼ 138 ± 6-day period might implythat X-ray ﬂares of class >∼ M5.0 (period at ∼ 157±11 days) may drive certain typesof geomagnetic disturbances; and the ∼ 28±0.2-day periodicity is most likely causedby recurrent high-speed solar winds at the Earth’s magnetosphere. For the same threedata sets, we further perform Morlet wavelet analysis to derive period-time contoursand identify wavelet power peaks and timescales at the 99 percent conﬁdence level forcomparisons. Several conceptual aspects of possible equatorially trapped Rossby-typewaves at and beneath the solar photosphere are discussed. space weather — Sun: activities — corona — coronalmass ejections — magnetic ﬁelds

title: Studies of the decays D^0 \rightarrow K_S^0K^-\pi^+ and D^0 \rightarrow K_S^0K^+\pi^-
abstract: Insler, H. Muramatsu, C. S. Park, L. J. Pearson, E. H. Thorndike, S. Ricciardi, C. Thomas, 3 M. Artuso, S. Blusk, R. Mountain, T. Skwarnicki, S. Stone, J. C. Wang, L. M. Zhang, G. Bonvicini, D. Cinabro, M. J. Smith, P. Zhou, T. Gershon, P. Naik, J. Rademacker, K. W. Edwards, K. Randrianarivony, R. A. Briere, H. Vogel, P. U. E. Onyisi, J. L. Rosner, J. P. Alexander, D. G. Cassel, S. Das, R. Ehrlich, L. Gibbons, S. W. Gray, D. L. Hartill, D. L. Kreinick, V. E. Kuznetsov, J. R. Patterson, D. Peterson, D. Riley, A. Ryd, A. J. Sadoff, X. Shi, W. M. Sun, J. Yelton, P. Rubin, N. Lowrey, S. Mehrabyan, M. Selen, J. Wiss, J. Libby, M. Kornicer, R. E. Mitchell, D. Besson, T. K. Pedlar, D. Cronin-Hennessy, J. Hietala, S. Dobbs,  Seth, A. Tomaradze, T. Xiao, D. Johnson, S. Malde, L. Martin, A. Powell, G. Wilkinson, D. M. Asner, G. Tatishvili, J. Y. Ge, D. H. Miller, I. P. J. Shipsey, B. Xin, G. S. Adams, J. Napolitano, and K. M. Ecklund

title: The sky brightness and transparency in i-band at Dome A, Antarctica
abstract: The i-band observing conditions at Dome A on the Antarctic plateau have been investigated using data acquired during 2008 with the Chinese Small Telescope ARray. The sky brightness, variations in atmospheric transparency, cloud cover, and the presence of aurorae are obtained from these images. The median sky brightness of moonless clear nights is 20.5 mag arcsec^{-2} in the SDSS $i$ band at the South Celestial Pole (which includes a contribution of about 0.06 mag from diffuse Galactic light). The median over all Moon phases in the Antarctic winter is about 19.8 mag arcsec^{-2}. There were no thick clouds in 2008. We model contributions of the Sun and the Moon to the sky background to obtain the relationship between the sky brightness and transparency. Aurorae are identified by comparing the observed sky brightness to the sky brightness expected from this model. About 2% of the images are affected by relatively strong aurorae.

title: AGN/starburst connection in action: the half million second RGS spectrum of NGC 1365
abstract: High-resolution X-ray observations in the imaging and spectral domain have recently opened a new window on active galactic nuclei (AGN) feedback onto the circumnuclear gas. Spectral diagnostics, as well as the remarkable morphological coincidence between [O iii] and X-rays, point to AGN photoionisation as the dominant ionisation mechanism on scales as large as a few kpc.  In this paper we extend these studies to the nearby Seyfert 2 galaxy NGC 1365, known to host a circumnuclear ring of intense star formation at � 1.3 kpc from the nucleus. The main scope of this investigation is to study the connection between nuclear activity and star formation in nearby AGN.  We present a deep (� 5.8 days) 0.3–2 keV high-resolution spectrum of NGC 1365, collected with the reflection grating spectrometer (RGS) on board XMM-Newton.  The spectrum is dominated by strong recombination lines of He- and H-like transitions from carbon to silicon, as well as by L transitions from Fexvii. The continuum is strong, especially in the 10 to 20 A range. Formal fits require two optically thin, collisionally ionised plasma components, with temperatures � 300 and � 640 eV. However, they leave the bulk of the forbidden components of the He-α Ovii and Nvi triplets unaccounted for. These features can be explained as being produced by photoionised gas. NGC 1365 is therefore the first obscured AGN, whose high-resolution X-ray spectrum requires both collisional ionisation and photoionisation.  The relative weakness of photoionisation does not stem from the intrinsic weakness of its AGN, whose X-ray luminosity is ∼ >10 42 erg s −1 . We suggest that it may instead come from the line-of-sight from the active nucleus to the NLR being blocked by optically thick matter in the broad line region, at the same time responsible for the large observed variation of the column density obscuring the X-ray active nucleus. Alternatively, NGC 1365 could host a remarkably luminous nuclear starburst when compared to the AGN accretion power.

title: Solar Intranetwork Magnetic Elements: Bipolar Flux Appearance
abstract: This study aims to quantify characteristic features of the bipolar flux appearance of solar intranetwork (IN) magnetic elements. To attack this problem, we use the Narrowband Filter Imager (NFI) magnetograms from the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) on board Hinode; these data are from quiet and enhanced network areas. Cluster emergence of mixed polarities and IN ephemeral regions (ERs) are the most conspicuous forms of bipolar flux appearance within the network. Each of the clusters is characterized by a few well-developed ERs that are partially or fully coaligned in magnetic axis orientation. On average, the sampled IN ERs have a total maximum unsigned flux of several 1017 Mx, a separation of 3 – 4 arcsec, and a lifetime of 10 – 15 minutes. The smallest IN ERs have a maximum unsigned flux of several 1016 Mx, separations of less than 1 arcsec, and lifetimes as short as 5 minutes. Most IN ERs exhibit a rotation of their magnetic axis of more than 10 degrees during flux emergence. Peculiar flux appearance, e.g., bipole shrinkage followed by growth or the reverse, is not unusual. A few examples show repeated shrinkage–growth or growth–shrinkage, like magnetic floats in the dynamic photosphere. The observed bipolar behavior seems to carry rich information on magnetoconvection in the subphotospheric layer.