arXiv subjects

Baolin Tan

Publications and source records attributed to Baolin Tan.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

Microwave diagnostics of magnetic field strengths in solar flaring loops

We have performed microwave diagnostics of the magnetic field strengths in solar flare loops based on the theory of gyrosynchrotron emission. From Nobeyama Radioheliograph observations of three flare events at 17 and 34 GHz, we obtained the degree of circular polarization and the spectral index of microwave flux density, which were then used to map the magnetic field strengths in post-flare loops. Our results show that the magnetic field strength typically decreases from ~800 G near the loop footpoints to ~100 G at a height of 10--25 Mm. Comparison of our results with magnetic field modeling using a flux rope insertion method is also discussed. Our study demonstrates the potential of microwave imaging observations, even at only two frequencies, in diagnosing the coronal magnetic field of flaring regions.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2020

Magnetic Gradient: A Natural Driver of Solar Eruptions

It is well-known that there is a gradient, there will drive a flow inevitably. For example, a density-gradient may drive a diffusion flow, an electrical potential-gradient may drive an electric current in plasmas, etc. Then, what will be driven when a magnetic-gradient occurs in solar atmospheric plasmas? Considering the ubiquitous distribution of magnetic-gradient in solar plasma loops, this work demonstrates that magnetic-gradient pumping (MGP) mechanism is valid even in the partial ionized solar photosphere, chromosphere as well as in the corona. It drives energetic particle flows which carry and convey kinetic energy from the underlying atmosphere to move upwards, accumulate around the looptop and increase there temperature and pressure, and finally lead to eruptions around the looptop by triggering ballooning instabilities. This mechanism may explain the formation of the observing hot cusp-structures above flaring loops in most preflare phases, therefore, the magnetic-gradient should be a natural driver of solar eruptions. Furthermore, we may also apply to understand many other astrophysical phenomena, such as the temperature distribution above sunspots, the formation of solar plasma jets, type-II spicule, and fast solar wind above coronal holes, as well as the fast plasma jets related to white dwarfs, neutron stars and black holes.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2019

A Compact Source for Quasi-Periodic Pulsation in an M-class Solar Flare

Quasi-periodic pulsations (QPP) are usually found in the light curves of solar and stellar flares, they carry the features of time characteristics and plasma emission of the flaring core, and could be used to diagnose the coronas of the Sun and remote stars. In this study, we combined the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the Nobeyama Radioheliograph (NoRH) to observe an M7.7 class flare occurred at active region 11520 on 19 July 2012. A QPP was detected both in the AIA $131\unit{Å}$ bandpass and the NoRH $17\unit{GHz}$ channel, it had a period of about four minutes. In the spatial distribution of Fourier power, we found that this QPP originated from a compact source and that it overlapped with the X-ray source above the loop top. The plasma emission intensities in the AIA $131\unit{Å}$ bandpass were highly correlated within this region. The source region is further segmented into stripes that oscillated with distinctive phases. Evidence in this event suggests that this QPP was likely to be generated by intermittent energy injection into the reconnection region.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2019

Solar Fast Drifting Radio Bursts in an X1.3 Flare on 2014 April 25

One of the most important products of solar flares are nonthermal energetic particles which may carry up to 50\% energy releasing in the flaring processes. In radio observations, nonthermal particles generally manifest as spectral fine structures with fast frequency drifting rates, named as solar fast drifting radio bursts (FDRBs). This work demonstrated three types of FDRBs, including type III pair bursts, narrow band stochastic spike bursts following the type III bursts and spike-like bursts superimposed on type II burst in an X1.3 flare on 2014 April 25. We find that although all of them have fast frequency drifting rates, but they are intrinsically different from each other in frequency bandwidth, drifting rate and the statistical distributions. We suggest that they are possibly generated from different accelerating mechanisms. The type III pair bursts may be triggered by high-energy electron beams accelerated by the flaring magnetic reconnection, spike bursts are produced by the energetic electrons accelerated by a termination shock wave triggered by the fast reconnecting plasma outflows impacting on the flaring looptop, and spike-like bursts are possibly generated by the nonthermal electrons accelerated by moving magnetic reconnection triggered by the interaction between CME and the background magnetized plasma. These results may help us to understand the generation mechanism of nonthermal particles and energy release in solar flares.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2018

The Characteristics of Valley Phase as Predictor of the Forthcoming Solar Cycle

Is Solar Cycle 24 anomalous? How do we predict the main features of a forthcoming cycle? In order to reply such questions, this work partitions quantitatively each cycle into valley, ascend, peak, and descend phases, statistically investigate the correlations between valley phase and the forthcoming cycle. We find that the preceding valley phase may dominate and can be predictor of the forthcoming cycle: (1) The growth rate in ascend phase strongly negatively correlates to valley length and strongly positively correlates to cycle maximum. (2) The cycle maximum strongly negatively correlates to valley length, and strongly positively correlates to cycle minimum. (3) The cycle period strongly negatively correlates to the valley variation. Based on these correlations, we conclude that the solar cycle 24 is a relatively weak and long cycle which is obviously weaker than Cycle 23. The similarity analysis also presents the similar result. The Cycle 25 is also inferred possibly to be a weak cycle. These results can help us understanding the physical processes of solar cycles.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2018

Fine Structures of Solar Radio Type III Bursts and their Possible Relationship with Coronal Density Turbulence

Solar radio type III bursts are believed to be the most sensitive signature of near-relativistic electron beam propagation in the corona. A solar radio type IIIb-III pair burst with fine frequency structures, observed by the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) with high temporal ($\sim10$ ms) and spectral (12.5 kHz) resolutions at 30 - 80 MHz, is presented. The observations show that the type III burst consists of many striae, which have a frequency scale of about 0.1 MHz in both the fundamental (plasma) and the harmonic (double plasma) emission. We investigate the effects of background density fluctuations based on the observation of striae structure to estimate the density perturbation in solar corona. It is found that the spectral index of the density fluctuation spectrum is about $-1.7$, and the characteristic spatial scale of the density perturbation is around $700$ km. This spectral index is very close to a Kolmogorov turbulence spectral index of $-5/3$, consistent with a turbulent cascade. This fact indicates that the coronal turbulence may play the important role of modulating the time structures of solar radio type III bursts, and the fine structure of radio type III bursts could provide a useful and unique tool to diagnose the turbulence in the solar corona.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2017

Investigation of the Relationship Between the Air Pollution and Solar Activity

How did the Sun affect the air pollution on the Earth? There are few papers about this question. This work investigates the relationship between the air pollution and solar activity by using the geophysical and environmental data during the period of 2000-2016. It is quite certain that the solar activity may impact on the air pollution, but the relationship is very weak and indirect. The Pearson correlation, Spearman rank correlation, Kendalls rank correlation, and conditional probability were adopted to analyze the air pollution index (API), air quality index (AQI), sunspot number (SSN), radio flux at wavelength of 10.7 cm (F10.7), and total solar irradiance (TSI). The analysis implies that the correlation coefficient between API and SSN is weak ($-0.17<r<0.32$) with complex variation. The main results are: (1) For cities with higher air pollution, the probability of high API will be increased along with SSN, then reach to a maximum, and then decreased; (2) For cities with lower air pollution, the API has lower correlation with SSN; (3) The relationship between API and F10.7, or API and TSI are also similar as API and SSN. The solar activities take direct effect on TSI and the energetic particle flux, and indirect and long-term effect on lower atmosphere and weather near the Earth. All of these factors contribute to the air pollution on the Earth.

physics.ao-ph↗

arXiv2016

The Broken Lane of a Type II Radio Burst Caused by Collision of a Coronal Shock with a Flare Current Sheet

We investigated a peculiar metric type II solar radio burst with a broken lane structure, which was observed on November 13, 2012. In addition to the radio data, we also studied the data in the other wavelengths. The bursts were associated with two CMEs and two flares that originated from active region AR 11613. A long current sheet was developed in the first CME, and the second CME collided with the current sheet first and then merged with the first one. Combing information revealed by the multi-wavelength data indicated that a coronal shock accounting for the type II radio burst, and that the collision of this shock with the current sheet resulted in the broken lane of the type II radio burst. The type II burst lane resumed after the shock passed through the current sheet. We further estimated the thickness of the current sheet according to the gap on the lane of the type II burst, and found that the result is consistent with previous ones obtained for various events observed in different wavelengths by different instruments. In addition, the regular type II burst associated with the first CME/flare was also studied, and the magnetic field in each source region of the two type II bursts was further deduced in different way.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2016

Very Long-period Pulsations before the Onset of Solar Flares

Solar flares are the most powerful explosions occurring in the solar system, which may lead to disastrous space weather events and impact various aspects of our Earth. So far, it is still a big challenge in modern astrophysics to understand the origin of solar flares and predict their onset. Based on the analysis of soft X-ray emission observed by the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), this work reported a new discovery of very long-periodic pulsations occurred in the preflare phase before the onset of solar flares (preflare-VLPs). These pulsations are typically with period of 8 - 30 min and last for about 1 - 2 hours. They are possibly generated from LRC oscillations of plasma loops where electric current dominates the physical process during magnetic energy accumulation in the source region. The preflare-VLP provides an essential information for understanding the triggering mechanism and origin of solar flares, and may help us to response to solar explosions and the corresponding disastrous space weather events as a convenient precursory indicator.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2016

Diagnosing the Source Region of a Solar Burst on 26 September 2011 by Microwave Type III Pairs

This work reports a peculiar and interesting train of microwave type III pair bursts in the impulsive rising phase of a solar flare on 2011 September 26. The observations include radio spectrometers at frequency of 0.80 - 2.00 GHz, hard X-ray (RHESSI and FERMI), EUV images of SWAP/PROBA-2 and magnetogram of HMI/SDO. By using a recently developed method (Tan et al. 2016a), we diagnosed the plasma density, temperature, plasma beta, magnetic field near the source region, the energy of energetic electrons and the distance between the acceleration region and the emission start sites of type III bursts. From the diagnostics, we find that: (1) The plasma density, temperature, magnetic field, and the distance between the acceleration region and the emission start sites almost have no obvious variations during the period of type III pair trains, while the energy of electrons has an obvious peak value which is consistent to the hard X-ray emission. (2) The plasma beta is much higher than an unity showing a highly dynamic process near the emission start site of type III bursts. (3) Although the reversed-slope type III branches drift slower at one order of magnitude than that of the normal type III branches, the related downgoing and upgoing electrons still could have same order of magnitude of energy. These facts indicate that both of the upgoing and downgoing electrons are possibly accelerated by similar mechanism and in a small source region. This diagnostics can help us to understand the microphysics in the source region of solar bursts.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2016

Microwave Type III Pair Bursts in Solar Flares

Solar microwave type III pair burst is composed of normal and reverse-sloped (RS) burst branches with oppositely fast frequency drifts. It is the most sensitive signature of the primary energy release and electron accelerations in flares. This work reported 11 microwave type III pair events in 9 flares observed by radio spectrometers in China and the Czech Republic at frequency of 0.80 - 7.60 GHz during 1994 - 2014. These type III pairs occurred in flare impulsive and postflare phases with separate frequency in range of 1.08 - 3.42 GHz and frequency gap 10 - 1700 MHz. The frequency drift increases with the separate frequency (f_{x}), the lifetime of each burst is anti-correlated to f_{x}, while the frequency gap is independent to f_{x}. In most events, the normal branches are drifting obviously faster than the RS branches. The type III pairs occurring in flare impulsive phase have lower separate frequency, longer lifetime, wider frequency gap, and slower frequency drift than that occurring in postflare phase. And the latter always has strong circular polarization. Further analysis indicates that near the flare energy-release sites the plasma density is about 10^{10} - 10^{11},cm^{-3} and temperature higher than 10^{7} K . These results provide new constraints to the acceleration mechanism in solar flares.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2015

Diagnose Physical Conditions Near the Flare Energy-release Sites from Observations of Solar Microwave Type III Bursts

In the physics of solar flares, it is crucial to diagnose the physical conditions near the flare energy-release sites. However, so far it is unclear how do diagnose these physical conditions. Solar microwave type III burst is believed to be a sensitive signature of the primary energy release and electron accelerations in solar flares. This work takes into account the effect of magnetic field on the plasma density and developed s set of formulas which can be used to estimate the plasma density, temperature, magnetic field near the magnetic reconnection site and particle acceleration region, and the velocity and energy of electron beams. We applied these formulas to three groups of microwave type III pairs in a X-class flare, and obtained some reasonable and interesting results. This method can be applied to other microwave type III bursts to diagnose the physical conditions of source regions, and provide some basic information to understand the intrinsic nature and fundamental processes occurring near the flare energy-release sites.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2015

Flare processes evolution and polarization changes of fine structures of solar radio emission in the April 11, 2013 event

The measurement of positions and sizes of radio sources in the observations of solar radio spectral fine structures in an M6.5 flare on April 11, 2013 were observed simultaneously by several radio instruments at four different observatories: Chinese Solar Broadband Radio Spectrometers at Huairou (SBRS/Huairou), Ondrejov Radio spectrograph in the Czech Republic (ORSC/Ondrejov), Badary Broadband Microwave spectropolarimeter (BMS/Irkutsk), and spectrograph/IZMIRAN (Moscow, Troitsk). The fine structures include microwave zebra patterns (ZP), fast pulsations, and fibers. They were observed during the flare brightening located at the tops of a loop arcade. The dynamics of the polarization was associated with the motion of the flare exciter, which was observed in EUV images at 171A and 131A (SDO/AIA). Combining magnetograms observed by the SDO Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) with the homologous assumption of EUV flare brightening and ZP bursts, we deduced that the observed ZPs correspond to the ordinary radio emission mode. However, future analysis needs to verify the assumption that zebra radio sources are really related to a closed magnetic loop, and are located at lower heights in the solar atmosphere than the source of pulsations.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2015

Study of Calibration of Solar Radio Spectrometers and the quiet-Sun Radio Emission

This work presents a systematic investigation of the influence of weather conditions on the calibration errors by using Gaussian fitness, least chi-square linear fitness and wavelet transform to analyze the calibration coefficients from observations of the Chinese Solar Broadband Radio Spectrometers (at frequency bands of 1.0-2.0 GHz, 2.6-3.8 GHz, and 5.2-7.6 GHz) during 1997-2007. We found that calibration coefficients are influenced by the local air temperature. Considering the temperature correction, the calibration error will reduce by about $10\%-20\%$ at 2800 MHz. Based on the above investigation and the calibration corrections, we further study the radio emission of the quiet-Sun by using an appropriate hybrid model of the quiet-Sun atmosphere. The results indicate that the numerical flux of the hybrid model is much closer to the observation flux than that of other ones.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2014

Solar Radio Bursts with Spectral Fine Structures in Preflares

A good observation of preflare activities is important for us to understand the origin and triggering mechanism of solar flares, and to predict the occurrence of solar flares. This work presents the characteristics of microwave spectral fine structures as preflare activities of four solar flares observed by Ondřejov radio spectrograph in the frequency range of 0.8--2.0 GHz. We found that these microwave bursts which occurred 1--4 minutes before the onset of flares have spectral fine structures with relatively weak intensities and very short timescales. They include microwave quasi-periodic pulsations (QPP) with very short period of 0.1-0.3 s and dot bursts with millisecond timescales and narrow frequency bandwidths. Accompanying these microwave bursts, there are filament motions, plasma ejection or loop brightening on the EUV imaging observations and non-thermal hard X-ray emission enhancements observed by RHESSI. These facts may reveal certain independent non-thermal energy releasing processes and particle acceleration before the onset of solar flares. They may be conducive to understand the nature of solar flares and predict their occurrence.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2014

Coronal Heating Driven by A Magnetic-gradient Pumping Mechanism in Solar Plasmas

The solar coronal heating is a longstanding mystery in astrophysics. Considering that the solar magnetic field is spatially inhomogeneous with considerable magnetic gradient from solar surface to the corona, this work proposes a magnetic gradient pumping (MGP) mechanism and try to explain the formation of hot plasma upflows, such as the hot type II spicules and hot plasma ejections, etc. In MGP mechanism, the magnetic gradients drive the energetic particles to move upwards from the underlying solar atmosphere and form hot upflows. These upflow energetic particles deposit in corona and make it becoming very hot. Roughly estimations indicate that the solar corona can be heated to above 1 million degrees, and the upflow velocity is about 40 km/s in chromosphere and about 130 km/s in the corona. The solar magnetic flux tubes act as pumpers to extract energetic particles from the underlying thermal photosphere, convey them and deposit in the corona. The deposition of energetic particles will make the corona become hot, and their escaping from the photosphere will make the underlying photosphere a bit cold. This mechanism present a natural explanation to the mystery of solar coronal heating.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2014

Dynamics of flare processes and variety of the fine structure of solar radio emission over a wide frequency range of 30 - 7000 MHz

Radiobursts exibiting fine structure observed over two years during the rising phase of Cycle 24 by the SBRS are analyzed. In five events zebra structure, various fiber bursts and fast pulsations were observed. Events on 15 and 24 February 2011 are of the greatest interest. The polarization of radio emission in all three cases is related to the ordinary wave mode of radio emission.Almost all events in the microwave range contain superfine structure. It is possible that each type of fine structure is excited by the same mechanism, and the broad variety of events is related to the dynamics of flare processes.

astro-ph.SR↗

arXiv2014

Oscillations in a sunspot with light bridges

Solar Optical Telescope onboard Hinode observed a sunspot (AR 11836) with two light bridges (LBs) on 31 Aug 2013. We analysed a 2-hour \ion{Ca}{2} H emission intensity data set and detected strong 5-min oscillation power on both LBs and in the inner penumbra. The time-distance plot reveals that 5-min oscillation phase does not vary significantly along the thin bridge, indicating that the oscillations are likely to originate from the underneath. The slit taken along the central axis of the wide light bridge exhibits a standing wave feature. However, at the centre of the wide bridge, the 5-min oscillation power is found to be stronger than at its sides. Moreover, the time-distance plot across the wide bridge exhibits a herringbone pattern that indicates a counter-stream of two running waves originated at the bridge sides. Thus, the 5-min oscillations on the wide bridge also resemble the properties of running penumbral waves. The 5-min oscillations are suppressed in the umbra, while the 3-min oscillations occupy all three cores of the sunspot's umbra, separated by the LBs. The 3-min oscillations were found to be in phase at both sides of the LBs. It may indicate that either LBs do not affect umbral oscillations, or umbral oscillations at different umbral cores share the same source. Also, it indicates that LBs are rather shallow objects situated in the upper part of the umbra. We found that umbral flashes follow the life cycles of umbral oscillations with much larger amplitudes. They cannot propagate across LBs. Umbral flashes dominate the 3-min oscillation power within each core, however, they do not disrupt the phase of umbral oscillation.

astro-ph.SR↗