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Sunspots are concentrations of magnetic field visible on the solar surface (photosphere). It was considered implausible that solar flares, as resulted from magnetic reconnection in the tenuous corona, would cause a direct perturbation of…
Time has emerged as a new degree of freedom for metamaterials, promising new pathways in wave control. However, electromagnetism suffers from limitations in the modulation speed of material parameters. Here we argue that these limitations…
We argue that light sails that are rapidly accelerated to relativistic velocities by lasers must be significantly curved in order to reduce their mechanical stresses and avoid tears. Using an integrated opto-thermo-mechanical model, we show…
The recent discovery of inertial waves on the surface of the Sun offers new possibilities to learn about the solar interior. These waves are long-lived with a period on the order of the Sun rotation period ($\sim$27 days) and are sensitive…
The Sun, aside from its eleven year sunspot cycle is additionally subject to long term variation in its activity. In this work we analyse a solar-like convective dynamo simulation, containing approximately 60 magnetic cycles, exhibiting…
Laser sails propelled by gigawatt-scale ground-based laser arrays have the potential to reach relativistic speeds, traversing the solar system in hours and reaching nearby stars in years. Here, we describe the danger interplanetary dust…
A formula for the wavefront of a wave reflected from a diffraction grating with an arbitrary surface profile, as well as with arbitrary non-equidistant and non-parallel grooves was obtained. It was shown that the wavefront of the reflected…
The reflectivity of various Bragg reflectors in connection to waveguide structures, including nanowires, has been investigated using modal reflection and transmission matrices. A semi-analytical model was applied yielding increased…
A method to measure the seeing from video made during drift-scan solar transits is proposed. The limb of the Sun is projected over a regular grid evenly spaced. The temporal dispersion of the time intervals among the contacts between solar…
The optical characterization of dielectric periodic line-gratings for which the period of the grating is significantly larger than the probing wavelength is investigated experimentally, numerically, and analytically. The experimental…
Irradiance variability has been monitored from space for more than two decades. Even if data are coming from different sources, it is well established that a temporal variability exists which can be set to as approximately 0.1%, in phase…
A star that passes too close to a massive black hole will be torn apart by tidal forces. The flare of photons emitted during the accretion of the stellar debris is predicted to be observable and candidates of such events have been observed…
In this paper we show how transmission metallic gratings with very narrow and deep enough slits can exhibit transmission resonances for wavelengths larger than the period of the grating. By using a transfer matrix formalism and a…
Nonreciprocal photonic devices enable "one-way" light flows and are essential building blocks of optical systems. Here, we investigate an alternative paradigm to break reciprocity and achieve unidirectional subwavelength light propagation…
We theoretically investigate electron transport through corrugated graphene ribbons and show how the ribbon curvature leads to an electronic superlattice with a period set by the corrugation wave length. Transport through the ribbon depends…
A series of thin layers of alternating refractive index is known to make a good optical mirror over certain bands of frequency. Such a device - often termed the Bragg reflector - is usually introduced to students within the first years of…
Ultrathin lightsails propelled by laser radiation pressure to relativistic speeds are currently the most promising route for flyby-based exoplanet exploration. However, there has been a notable lack of experimental characterization of key…
We first discuss how the flux transport dynamo with reasonably high diffusion can explain both the regular and the irregular features of the solar cycle quite well. Then we critically examine the inadequacies of the model and the challenge…
Magnetic turbulence in the solar wind is treated from the point of view of electrodynamics. This can be done based on the use of Poynting's theorem attributing all turbulent dynamics to the spectrum of turbulent conductivity. For two…
Background: A solar sail presents a large sheet of low areal density membrane and is the most elegant propellant-less propulsion system for the future exploration of the Solar System and beyond. By today the study on sail membrane…