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D. Müller

Publications and source records attributed to D. Müller.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Height-dependent thermal properties of extreme-ultraviolet campfires in the quiet Sun

Small-scale impulsive energy-release events are widely considered a key ingredient of quiet-Sun coronal heating. We quantified the thermal-energy content of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) campfires, examined their impulsive heating characteristics, and investigated how their properties vary with atmospheric height. We analysed the complete campfire set from the 30 May 2020 Solar Orbiter/EUI observing sequence at 174 Angstrom, using SDO/AIA temperatures and emission measures, multiple volume models, cumulative distributions, and maximum-likelihood methods. We compared the results with Solar Orbiter/STIX microflares and SDO/AIA nanoflare-like events. Short-duration campfires occur at all heights, whereas longer-lived events preferentially occur in chromospheric layers. Emitting volumes and thermal energies show no comparable height dependence. Background-subtracted thermal energies span approximately $10^{20}$-$10^{24}$ erg, with rare events reaching $5\times10^{24}$ erg. The robust power-law regime extends over approximately $10^{22}$-$10^{24}$ erg; non-background-subtracted estimates are about one order of magnitude higher. Directly detected campfires contribute a sub-percent fraction of the canonical quiet-Sun heating requirement. Approximate corrections for the detection threshold and differential emission measure completeness could raise this to a few percent, but this remains a single-epoch, order-of-magnitude estimate. EUV campfires extend the flare energy distribution towards lower energies. The height dependence of durations, driven mainly by an excess of long-lived events in the lower chromosphere, alongside broadly invariant energy and volume distributions, indicates that atmospheric stratification primarily modulates cooling and dissipation timescales rather than the characteristic heating energy scale.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2026

A magnetic avalanche as the central engine powering a solar flare

Solar flares are the most powerful, magnetically driven, explosions in the heliosphere. The nature of magnetic energy release in the solar corona that heats the plasma and accelerates particles in a flare, however, remains poorly understood. Here, we report high-resolution coronal observations of a flare by the Solar Orbiter mission that reveal initially weaker but rapid reconnection events, on timescales of a few seconds at most, leading to a more prominent activity of a similar nature that explosively causes a flare. Signatures of this process are further imprinted on the widespread raining plasma blobs with short lifetimes, giving rise to the characteristic ribbon-like emission pattern associated with the flare. Our observations unveil the central engine of a flare and emphasize the crucial role of an avalanche-like magnetic energy release mechanism at work.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2024

Spatial distributions of EUV brightenings in the quiet-Sun

The identification of large numbers of localised transient EUV brightenings, with small spatial scales, in the quiet-Sun corona has been one of the key early results from Solar Orbiter. However, much is still unknown about these events. Here, we aim to better understand EUV brightenings by investigating their spatial distributions, specifically whether they occur co-spatial with specific line-of-sight magnetic field topologies in the photospheric network. EUV brightenings are detected using an automated algorithm applied to a high-cadence (3 s) dataset sampled over ~30 min on 8 March 2022 by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager's 17.4 nm EUV High Resolution Imager. Data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory's Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager and Atmospheric Imaging Assembly are used to provide context about the line-of-sight magnetic field and for alignment purposes. We found a total of 5064 EUV brightenings within this dataset that are directly comparable to events reported previously in the literature. These events occurred within around 0.015-0.020 % of pixels for any given frame. We compared eight different thresholds to split the EUV brightenings into four different categories related to the line-of-sight magnetic field. Using our preferred threshold, we found that 627 EUV brightenings (12.4 %) occurred co-spatial with Strong Bipolar configurations and 967 EUV brightenings (19.1 %) occurred in Weak Field regions. Fewer than 10 % of EUV brightenings occurred co-spatial with Unipolar line-of-sight magnetic field no matter what threshold was used. Of the 627 Strong Bipolar EUV Brightenings, 54 were found to occur co-spatial with cancellation whilst 57 occurred co-spatial with emergence. EUV brightenings preferentially occur co-spatial with the strong line-of-sight magnetic field in the photospheric network. They do not, though, predominantly occur co-spatial with (cancelling) bi-poles.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2023

A multiple spacecraft detection of the 2 April 2022 M-class flare and filament eruption during the first close Solar Orbiter perihelion

The Solar Orbiter mission completed its first remote-sensing observation windows in the spring of 2022. On 2/4/2022, an M-class flare followed by a filament eruption was seen both by the instruments on board the mission and from several observatories in Earth's orbit. The complexity of the observed features is compared with the predictions given by the standard flare model in 3D. We use the observations from a multi-view dataset, which includes EUV imaging to spectroscopy and magnetic field measurements. These data come from IRIS, SDO, Hinode, as well as several instruments on Solar Orbiter. Information given by SDO/HMI and Solar Orbiter PHI/HRT shows that a parasitic polarity emerging underneath the filament is responsible for bringing the flux rope to an unstable state. As the flux rope erupts, Hinode/EIS captures blue-shifted emission in the transition region and coronal lines in the northern leg of the flux rope prior to the flare peak. Solar Orbiter SPICE captures the whole region, complementing the Doppler diagnostics of the filament eruption. Analyses of the formation and evolution of a complex set of flare ribbons and loops show that the parasitic emerging bipole plays an important role in the evolution of the flaring region. While the analysed data are overall consistent with the standard flare model, the present particular magnetic configuration shows that surrounding magnetic activity such as nearby emergence needs to be taken into account to fully understand the processes at work. This filament eruption is the first to be covered from different angles by spectroscopic instruments, and provides an unprecedented diagnostic of the multi-thermal structures present before and during the flare. This dataset of an eruptive event showcases the capabilities of coordinated observations with the Solar Orbiter mission.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2023

Probing time orientability of spacetime

In general relativity, cosmology and quantum field theory, spacetime is assumed to be an orientable manifold endowed with a Lorentz metric that makes it spatially and temporally orientable. The question as to whether the laws of physics require these orientability assumptions is ultimately of observational or experimental nature, or the answer might come from a fundamental theory of physics. The possibility that spacetime is time non-orientable lacks investigation, and so should not be dismissed straightaway. In this paper, we argue that it is possible to locally access a putative time non-orientability of Minkowski empty spacetime by physical effects involving quantum vacuum electromagnetic fluctuations. We set ourselves to study the influence of time non-orientability on the stochastic motions of a charged particle subject to these electromagnetic fluctuations in Minkowski spacetime equipped with a time non-orientable topology and with its time orientable counterpart. To this end, we introduce and derive analytic expressions for a statistical time orientability indicator. Then we show that it is possible to pinpoint the time non-orientable topology through an inversion pattern displayed by the corresponding orientability indicator, which is absent when the underlying manifold is time orientable.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2022

Probing spatial orientability of Friedmann--Robertson--Walker spatially flat spacetime

One important global topological property of a spacetime manifold is orientability. It is widely believed that spatial orientability can only be tested by global journeys around the Universe to check for orientation-reversing closed paths. Since such global journeys are not feasible, theoretical arguments that combine universality of physical experiments with local arrow of time, CP violation and CPT invariance are usually offered to support the choosing of time- and space-orientable spacetime manifolds. The nonexistence of globally defined spinor fields on a non-orientable spacetime is another theoretical argument for orientability. However, it is conceivable that orientability can be put to test by local physical effects. In this paper, we show that it is possible to locally access spatial orientability of a spatially flat Friedmann--Robertson-Walker spacetime through quantum vacuum electromagnestic fluctuations. We argue that a putative non-orientability of the spatial sections of spatially flat FRW spacetime can be ascertained by the study of the stochastic motions of a charged particle or a point electric dipole under quantum vacuum electromagnetic fluctuations. In particular, the stochastic motions of a dipole permit the recognition of a presumed non-orientability of $3-$space in itself.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2021

First observations from the SPICE EUV spectrometer on Solar Orbiter

We present first science observations taken during the commissioning activities of the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument on the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission. SPICE is a high-resolution imaging spectrometer operating at extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelengths. In this paper we illustrate the possible types of observations to give prospective users a better understanding of the science capabilities of SPICE. The paper discusses the first observations of the Sun on different targets and presents an example of the full spectra from the quiet Sun, identifying over 40 spectral lines from neutral hydrogen and ions of carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, neon, sulphur, magnesium, and iron. These lines cover the temperature range between 20,000 K and 1 million K (10MK in flares), providing slices of the Sun's atmosphere in narrow temperature intervals. We provide a list of count rates for the 23 brightest spectral lines. We show examples of raster images of the quiet Sun in several strong transition region lines, where we have found unusually bright, compact structures in the quiet Sun network, with extreme intensities up to 25 times greater than the average intensity across the image. The lifetimes of these structures can exceed 2.5 hours. We identify them as a transition region signature of coronal bright points and compare their areas and intensity enhancements. We also show the first above-limb measurements with SPICE above the polar limb in C III, O VI, and Ne VIII lines, and far off limb measurements in the equatorial plane in Mg IX, Ne VIII, and O VI lines. We discuss the potential to use abundance diagnostics methods to study the variability of the elemental composition that can be compared with in situ measurements to help confirm the magnetic connection between the spacecraft location and the Sun's surface, and locate the sources of the solar wind.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2020

The Solar Orbiter mission -- Science overview

Solar Orbiter, the first mission of ESA's Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme and a mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA, will explore the Sun and heliosphere from close up and out of the ecliptic plane. It was launched on 10 February 2020 04:03 UTC from Cape Canaveral and aims to address key questions of solar and heliospheric physics pertaining to how the Sun creates and controls the Heliosphere, and why solar activity changes with time. To answer these, the mission carries six remote-sensing instruments to observe the Sun and the solar corona, and four in-situ instruments to measure the solar wind, energetic particles, and electromagnetic fields. In this paper, we describe the science objectives of the mission, and how these will be addressed by the joint observations of the instruments onboard. The paper first summarises the mission-level science objectives, followed by an overview of the spacecraft and payload. We report the observables and performance figures of each instrument, as well as the trajectory design. This is followed by a summary of the science operations concept. The paper concludes with a more detailed description of the science objectives. Solar Orbiter will combine in-situ measurements in the heliosphere with high-resolution remote-sensing observations of the Sun to address fundamental questions of solar and heliospheric physics. The performance of the Solar Orbiter payload meets the requirements derived from the mission's science objectives. Its science return will be augmented further by coordinated observations with other space missions and ground-based observatories.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2019

Inverse Radon transform at work

The inverse Radon transform allows to obtain partonic double distributions from (extended) generalized parton distributions. We express the extension of generalized parton distributions by their dual parts, generalized distribution amplitudes and study some aspects of the filtered backprojection (inverse Radon transform). We also show that single integral transforms, previously obtained in the context of wave function overlap representation, are valid for generalized parton distributions that do not possess such a representation. Utilizing Radyushkin`s double distribution ansatz, we study and compare the numerical evaluation of double distributions within the filtered backprojection and single integral transforms along the imaginary and real axes.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2019

The Solar Orbiter SPICE instrument -- An extreme UV imaging spectrometer

The Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument is a high-resolution imaging spectrometer operating at extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wavelengths. In this paper, we present the concept, design, and pre-launch performance of this facility instrument on the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission. The goal of this paper is to give prospective users a better understanding of the possible types of observations, the data acquisition, and the sources that contribute to the instrument's signal. The paper discusses the science objectives, with a focus on the SPICE-specific aspects, before presenting the instrument's design, including optical, mechanical, thermal, and electronics aspects. This is followed by a characterisation and calibration of the instrument's performance. The paper concludes with descriptions of the operations concept and data processing. The performance measurements of the various instrument parameters meet the requirements derived from the mission's science objectives. The SPICE instrument is ready to perform measurements that will provide vital contributions to the scientific success of the Solar Orbiter mission.

astro-ph.IM↗
arXiv2018

ReDecay: A novel approach to speed up the simulation at LHCb

With the steady increase in the precision of flavour physics measurements collected during LHC Run 2, the LHCb experiment requires simulated data samples of larger and larger sizes to study the detector response in detail. The simulation of the detector response is the main contribution to the time needed to simulate full events. This time scales linearly with the particle multiplicity. Of the dozens of particles present in the simulation only the few participating in the signal decay under study are of interest, while all remaining particles mainly affect the resolutions and efficiencies of the detector. This paper presents a novel development for the LHCb simulation software which re-uses the rest of the event from previously simulated events. This approach achieves an order of magnitude increase in speed and the same quality compared to the nominal simulation.

hep-ex↗
arXiv2018

Nucleon and nuclear structure through dilepton production

Transverse momentum distributions and generalized parton distributions provide a comprehensive framework for the three-dimensional imaging of the nucleon and the nucleus experimentally using deeply virtual semi-exclusive and exclusive processes. The advent of combined high luminosity facilities and large acceptance detector capabilities enables experimental investigation of the partonic structure of hadrons with time-like virtual probes, in complement to the rich on-going space-like virtual probe program. The merits and benefits of the dilepton production channel for nuclear structure studies are discussed within the context of the International Workshop on Nucleon and Nuclear Structure through Dilepton Production taking place at the European Center for Theoretical Studies in Nuclear Physics and Related Areas (ECT$^{\star}$) of Trento. Particularly, the double deeply virtual Compton scattering, the time-like Compton scattering, the deeply virtual meson production, and the Drell-Yan processes are reviewed and a strategy for high impact experimental measurements is proposed.

nucl-ex↗
arXiv2017

Estimates for maximal functions associated to hypersurfaces in $\Bbb R^3$ with height $h<2:$ Part I

In this article, we continue the study of the problem of $L^p$-boundedness of the maximal operator $M$ associated to averages along isotropic dilates of a given, smooth hypersurface $S$ of finite type in 3-dimensional Euclidean space. An essentially complete answer to this problem had been given about seven years ago by the last named two authors in joint work with M. Kempe for the case where the height h of the given surface is at least two. In the present article, we turn to the case $h<2.$ More precisely, in this Part I, we study the case where $h<2,$ assuming that $S$ is contained in a sufficiently small neighborhood of a given point $x^0\in S$ at which both principal curvatures of $S$ vanish. Under these assumptions and a natural transversality assumption, we show that, as in the case where $h\ge 2,$ the critical Lebesgue exponent for the boundedness of $M$ remains to be $p_c=h,$ even though the proof of this result turns out to require new methods, some of which are inspired by the more recent work by the last named two authors on Fourier restriction to S. Results on the case where $h<2$ and exactly one principal curvature of $S$ does not vanish at $x^0$ will appear elsewhere.

math.CA↗
arXiv2017

JPEG2000 Image Compression on Solar EUV Images

For future solar missions as well as ground-based telescopes, efficient ways to return and process data have become increasingly important. Solar Orbiter, e.g., which is the next ESA/NASA mission to explore the Sun and the heliosphere, is a deep-space mission, which implies a limited telemetry rate that makes efficient onboard data compression a necessity to achieve the mission science goals. Missions like the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and future ground-based telescopes such as the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, on the other hand, face the challenge of making petabyte-sized solar data archives accessible to the solar community. New image compression standards address these challenges by implementing efficient and flexible compression algorithms that can be tailored to user requirements. We analyse solar images from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument onboard SDO to study the effect of lossy JPEG2000 (from the Joint Photographic Experts Group 2000) image compression at different bit rates. To assess the quality of compressed images, we use the mean structural similarity (MSSIM) index as well as the widely used peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR) as metrics and compare the two in the context of solar EUV images. In addition, we perform tests to validate the scientific use of the lossily compressed images by analysing examples of an on-disk and off-limb coronal-loop oscillation time-series observed by AIA/SDO.

astro-ph.SR↗
arXiv2016

Next-to-leading order corrections to deeply virtual production of pseudoscalar mesons

We complete the perturbative next-to-leading order corrections to the hard scattering amplitudes of deeply virtual meson leptoproduction processes at leading twist-two level by presenting the results for the production of flavor singlet pseudoscalar mesons. The new results are given in the common momentum fraction representation and in terms of conformal moments. We also comment on the flavor singlet results for deeply virtual vector meson production.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2016

On stability of the Kasner solution in quadratic gravity

We consider dynamics of a flat anisotropic Universe filled by a perfect fluid near a cosmological singularity in quadratic gravity. Two possible regimes are described -- the Kasner anisotropic solution and an isotropic "vacuum radiation" solution which has three sub cases depending on whether the equation of state parameter $w$ is bigger, smaller or equals to $1/3$. Initial conditions for numerical integrations have been chosen near General Relativity anisotropic solution with matter (Jacobs solution). We have found that for such initial conditions there is a range of values of coupling constants so that the resulting cosmological singularity is isotropic.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2015

B.R.N.O. Contributions #39 Times of minima

This paper presents 1463 times of minima for 455 objects acquired by 46 members and cooperating observers of the Variable Star and Exoplanet Section of the Czech Astronomical Society (B.R.N.O. Observing project). Observations were carried out between October 2013 - September 2014. Some neglected southern eclipsing binaries and newly discovered stars by the observers of project B.R.N.O. are included in the list.

astro-ph.SR↗