Related papers: Near-lunar proton velocity distribution explained …
Differential flows among different ion species are often observed in the solar wind, and such ion differential flows can provide the free energy to drive Alfv\'en/ion-cyclotron and fast-magnetosonic/whistler instabilities. Previous works…
The solar wind escapes from the solar corona and is accelerated, over a short distance, to its terminal velocity. The energy balance associated with this acceleration remains poorly understood. To quantify the global electrostatic…
We report on new simulations of the transport of energetic protons originating from the decay of energetic neutrons produced in solar flares. Because the neutrons are fast-moving but insensitive to the solar wind magnetic field, the decay…
Our understanding of Pulsar Wind Nebulae (PWNe), has greatly improved in the last years thanks to unprecedented high resolution images taken from the HUBBLE, CHANDRA and XMM satellites. The discovery of complex but similar inner features,…
A new electrostatic ramjet space engine is proposed and analyzed. The upper atmosphere (85 -1000 km) is extremely dense in ions (millions per cubic cm). The interplanetary medium contains positive protons from the solar wind. A charged ball…
Observational aspects of solar flares relevant to the acceleration process of electrons and protons are reviewed and it is shown that most of these observations can be explained by the interaction with flare plasma of a power law energy…
The propagation speed of a circumstellar pattern revealed in the plane of the sky is often assumed to represent the expansion speed of the wind matter ejected from a post-main-sequence star at the center. We point out that the often-adopted…
We study the interaction between the Moon and the solar wind using a three-dimensional hybrid plasma solver. The proton fluxes and electromagnetical fields are presented for typical solar wind conditions with different magnetic field…
Soft x-ray emissions induced by solar wind ions that collide with neutral material in the solar system have been detected around planets, and were proposed as a remote probe for the solar wind interaction with the Martian exosphere. A…
The Solar Wind Electrons Alphas and Protons experiment on the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) mission measures the three-dimensional electron velocity distribution function. We derive the parameters of the core, halo, and strahl populations…
We present observations with the Chandra X-ray Observatory of the pulsar wind nebula (PWN) within the supernova remnant G0.9+0.1. At Chandra's high resolution, the PWN has a clear axial symmetry; a faint X-ray point source lying along the…
We develop a model for the strahl population in the solar wind -- a narrow, low-density and high-energy electron beam centered on the magnetic field direction. Our model is based on the solution of the electron drift-kinetic equation at…
It has been recently suggested that magnetically affected neutrino oscillations inside a cooling protoneutron star, created in a supernova explosion, could explain the large proper motion of pulsars. We investigate whether this hypothesis…
A new analysis of extended data records collected with the Lunar Laser Ranging (LLR) technique performed with improved tidal models was not able to resolve the issue of the anomalous rate $\dot e$ of the eccentricity $e$ of the orbit of the…
One of the basic properties of the solar wind, that is the high speed of the fast wind, is still not satisfactorily explained. This is mainly due to the theoretical difficulty of treating weakly collisional plasmas. The fluid approach…
Linear theory is a well developed framework for characterizing instabilities in weakly collisional plasmas, such as the solar wind. In the previous instalment of this series, we analyzed ~1.5M proton and alpha particle Velocity Distribution…
A plasma velocity shear layer and/or a tangential flow discontinuity provide conditions allowing for energetic particle acceleration. We review such acceleration processes acting both in non-relativistic and in relativistic flows. In…
The recent observations revealed that the cosmic-ray (CR) proton spectrum showed a complex structure: the hardening at $\rm \sim 200~GeV$ and softening at $\rm \sim 10~TeV$. However, so far the physical origins of this spectral feature…
A variety of energy sources, ranging from dynamic processes like magnetic reconnection and waves to quasi-steady terms like the plasma pressure, may contribute to the acceleration of the solar wind. We utilize a combination of charged…
The application of linear kinetic treatments to plasma waves, damping, and instability requires favorable inequalities between the associated linear timescales and timescales for nonlinear (e.g., turbulence) evolution. In the solar wind…