Search NASA⌕ Search

Engineering topics

Peter R Young

Publications and source records attributed to Peter R Young.

Scattered Light in the Hinode/EIS and SDO/AIA Instruments Measured from the 2012 Venus Transit

Observations from the 2012 transit of Venus are used to derive empirical formulae for long- and short-range scattered light at locations on the solar disk observed by the Hinode Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) and the Solar Dynamics Observatory Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instruments. Long-range scattered light comes from the entire solar disk, while short-range scattered light is considered to come from a region within 50” of the region of interest. The formulae were derived from the Fe XII 195.12 Å emission line observed by EIS and the AIA 193 Å channel. A study of the weaker Fe XIV 274.20 Å line during the transit and a comparison of scattering in the AIA 193 Å and 304 Å channels suggests the EIS scattering formula applies to other emission lines in the EIS wavebands. Both formulae should be valid in regions of fairly uniform emission such as coronal holes and quiet Sun, but may be less accurate for faint areas close (around 100”) to bright active regions. The formula for EIS is used to estimate the scattered light component of Fe XII λ195.12 for seven on-disk coronal holes observed between 2010 and 2018. Scattered light contributions of 56%–100% are found, suggesting that these features are dominated by scattered light, consistent with earlier work of Wendeln & Landi. Emission lines from the S X and Si X ions—formed at the same temperature as Fe XII and often used to derive the first ionization potential bias from EIS data—are also expected to be dominated by scattered light in coronal holes.

Transits↗

The Case for Comprehensive Spectroscopic Measurements of the Sun: Understanding Solar Flares and Coronal Heating

We discuss spectroscopic capabilities needed to resolve two important unresolved questions in solar physics, namely, ``What heats the solar corona?" and ``What causes the sudden, rapid release of energy that produces flares?" Spectroscopic capabilities needed to answer these questions include: (1) high spectral resolution, to enable measurement of unblended profiles of numerous emission lines; (2) high sensitivity with a wide dynamic range, to enable detection of faint line emission as well as weak wing components; (3) comprehensive temperature coverage, observing lines formed at log T separated by 0.1 or 0.2 dex between at least 20,000 K and 20 MK; (4) an absolute wavelength scale, to enable Doppler velocity measurements accurate to within 1 km/s or better; (5) simultaneous measurements over spatial area comparable in size to active regions (4' x 4'); (6) spatial resolution sufficient to resolve loop strands and the immediate vicinities of reconnection sites (<1''); (7) cadence short enough to monitor evolution of the solar atmosphere during periods of most rapid change (<1 s).

Jeffrey W Brosius↗

Additions to the Spectrum of Fe IX in the 110–200 Å Region

The spectrum of eight-times ionized iron, Fe IX , was studied in the 110–200 Å region. A low inductance vacuum spark and a 3 m grazing incidence spectrograph were used for the excitation and recording of the spectrum. Previous analyses of Fe IX have been greatly extended and partly revised. The number of known lines in the 3p^(5)3d–3p^(5)4f and 3p^(5)3d–3p^(4)3d^(2) transition arrays is extended to 25 and 81, respectively. Most of the identifications of the Fe IX lines from the 3p^(5)3d–3p^(4)3d^(2) transition array in the solar spectrum have been confirmed and several new identifications are suggested.

atmoic spectroscopy↗

Atomic Data for Plasma Spectroscopy: The CHIANTI Database, Improvements and Challenges

CHIANTI is an atomic database and software package for modeling emission lines and continua from hot astrophysical plasmas. It is freely available to all researchers and has been widely used in the Heliophysics and Astrophysics communities for almost 25 years. In this review, we summarize the properties of the current version of the database and give an overview of the relevant atomic processes. We also discuss progress towards a complete implementation of collisional-radiative modeling, simultaneously solving for atomic level and ion populations for individual elements.

A&M databases↗