Related papers: The Magnetic Sun: Reversals and Long-Term Variatio…
Both the basic educational contents for students and study programs for science teachers include several topics in physics and astronomy, from the simplest ones to others as advanced as nuclear fusion to explain stellar evolution and…
A brief introduction to exterior differential systems for graduate students familiar with manifolds and differential forms. For complete files, see https://github.com/Ben-McKay/introduction-to-exterior-differential-systems
Lecture notes written for a one-semester course in mathematical relativity aimed at mathematics and physics students. Not meant as an introduction to general relativity, but rather as a complementary, more advanced text.
The sunspot solar cycle has been usually explained as the result of a dynamo process operating in the sun. This is a classical problem in Astrophysics that until the present is not fully solved. Here we discuss current problems and…
Simulations show for the first time how the magnetic fields that produce solar flares can extend out of the Sun by acquiring a twist.
Understanding the origin and long-term evolution of the Solar System is a fundamental goal of planetary science and astrophysics. This chapter describes our current understanding of the key processes that shaped our planetary system,…
Many stars exhibit strong magnetic fields, some of which are thought to be of primordial origin and others a sign of magnetic dynamo processes. We briefly review the results of observational studies of solar-type stars seeking to evaluate…
Arguments for and against the widely accepted picture of a solar dynamo being seated in the tachocline are reviewed and alternative ideas concerning dynamos operating in the bulk of the convection zone, or perhaps even in the near-surface…
Hydrodynamical simulations played an important role in understanding the dynamics and shaping of planetary nebulae in the past century. However, hydrodynamical simulations were just a first order approach. The new millennium arrived with…
Solar analogs, broadly defined as stars similar to the Sun in mass or spectral type, provide a useful laboratory for exploring the range of Sun-like behaviors and exploring the physical mechanisms underlying some of the Sun's most elusive…
Mean-field dynamo theory has important applications in solar physics and galactic magnetism. We discuss some of the many turbulence effects relevant to the generation of large-scale magnetic fields in the solar convection zone. The…
Understanding the reasons of the cyclic variation of the total solar irradiance is one of the most challenging targets of modern astrophysics. These studies prove to be essential also for a more climatologic issue, associated to the global…
Our understanding of stellar dynamos has largely been driven by the phenomena we have observed of our own Sun. Yet, as we amass longer-term datasets for an increasing number of stars, it is clear that there is a wide variety of stellar…
The recent observational, theoretical, and numerical progress made in understanding stellar magnetism is discussed. Particularly, this review will cover the physical processes thought to be at the origin of these magnetic fields and their…
This pedagogical note revisits the concept of electromagnetic helicity in classical systems. In particular, magnetic helicity and its role in mean field dynamo theories is briefly discussed highlighting the major mathematical inconsistency…
Simple models of magnetic field generation by convection in rotating spherical shells exhibit properties resembling those observed on the sun. The {assumption of the Boussinesq approximation made in these models} prevents a realistic…
We review recent insights into the dynamics of the solar convection zone obtained from global numerical simulations, focusing on two recent developments in particular. The first is quasi-cyclic magnetic activity in a long-duration dynamo…
I would like to thank Solar Physics colleagues for asking me to write this chapter on my professional life. My main interest has always been focused on the Sun, our star, from the heating of the corona, to the dynamics of prominences and…
This article presents a Python model and library that can be used for student investigation of the application of fundamental physics on a specific problem: the role of magnetic field in solar wind acceleration. The paper begins with a…
We give a pedagogical introduction to two aspects of magnetic fields in the early universe. We first focus on how to formulate electrodynamics in curved space time, defining appropriate magnetic and electric fields and writing Maxwell…