Related papers: Thermal metastabilities in the solar core
Observations of cool stars reveal dark spot-like features on their surfaces. Compared to sunspots, starspots can be bigger or cover a larger fraction of the stellar surface. While sunspots appear only at low latitudes, starspots are also…
The solar atmosphere was traditionally represented with a simple one-dimensional model. Over the past few decades, this paradigm shifted for the chromosphere and corona that constitute the outer atmosphere, which is now considered a dynamic…
Following an approach initially outlined by McKee & Holliman, we investigate the structure and stability of dense, starless molecular cloud cores. We model those as spherical clouds in hydrostatic equilibrium and supported against gravity…
The thermal stability of a weakly magnetized, rotating, stratified, optically thin plasma is studied by means of linear-perturbation analysis. We derive dispersion relations and criteria for stability against axisymmetric perturbations that…
Exoplanet surveys have confirmed one of humanity's (and all teenagers') worst fears: we are weird. If our Solar System were observed with present-day Earth technology -- to put our system and exoplanets on the same footing -- Jupiter is the…
Helioseismology has provided very precise information about the solar internal sound speed and density throughout most of the solar interior. The results are generally quite close to the properties of standard solar models. Since the solar…
Some possible ways of the energy production with fusion reactions in the Sun was explored theoretically in the first half of this century. Nowadays it is a standard view that the Sun produces its energy on a uniform level. I point out, that…
In the nucleated instability picture of gas giant formation, the final stage is the rapid accretion of a massive gas envelope by a solid core, bringing about a tenfold or more increase in mass. This tends to trigger the scattering of any…
The observed stability of nanobubbles contradicts the well-known result in classical nucleation theory, that the critical radius is both microscopic and thermodynamically unstable. Here nanoscopic stability is shown to be the combined…
We investigate the role of thermal instability, arising from radiative cooling of an optically thin, dusty plasma, by linear stability analysis. The corresponding isobaric stability condition for condensation mode is found to be modified…
Coronal structure and coronal heating are intimately related in magnetically active stars. Coronal structure is commonly inferred from radio interferometry and from eclipse and rotational modulation studies. We discuss to what extent flares…
The eccentric orbits of the known extrasolar giant planets provide evidence that most planet-forming environments undergo violent dynamical instabilities. Here, we numerically simulate the impact of giant planet instabilities on planetary…
The core structure of galaxy clusters is fundamentally important. Even though self-gravitating systems have no stable equilibrium state due to their negative heat capacity, numerical simulations find density profiles which are universal in…
Colloidal particles are often seen as big atoms that can be directly observed in real space. They are therefore playing an increasingly important role as model systems to study processes of interest in condensed matter physics such as…
An isolated massive star can blow a bubble, while a group of massive stars can blow superbubbles. In this paper, we examine three intriguing questions regarding bubbles and superbubbles: (1) why don't we see interstellar bubbles around…
As dark matter appears to comprise most of the Galactic mass, some of it may accumulate in the cores of stars, thereby making the Sun a laboratory for constraining various dark matter theories. We consider the effects on the solar structure…
The formation of the observed core-halo feature in the solar wind electron velocity distribution function is a long-time puzzle. In this letter based on the current knowledge of nanoflares we show that the nanoflare-accelerated electron…
Thermal instability is one of the most important processes in the formation of clumpy substructure in magnetic molecular clouds. On the other hand, ambipolar diffusion, or ion-neutral friction, has long been thought to be an important…
The presence and interplay of continuous cooling and heating processes maintaining the corona of the Sun at the observed one million K temperature were recently understood to have crucial effects on the dynamics and stability of…
Local thermal instability can plausibly explain the formation of multiphase gas in many different astrophysical environments, but the theory is only well understood in the optically thin limit of the equations of radiation hydrodynamics…