[HeliosphereNews] Heliosphere News April 25, 2016

Mon Apr 25 22:45:17 EDT 2016

Heliosphere News   April 25, 2016
http://heliospherenews.unh.edu/

A newsletter devoted to Heliospheric Science. 

Editor: Nathan Schwadron (nschwadron at unh.edu)
Co-Editor: Mihir Desai (mdesai at swri.edu)
Co-Editor: Eric Zirnstein (ezirnstein at swri.edu)
Co-Editor: Merav Opher (mopher at bu.edu)
Co-Editor: Adele Corona (icnsmeetings at gmail.com)
Co-Editor: Nikolai Pogorelov (np0002 at uah.edu)

Web site editor: Ken Fairchild (Ken.Fairchild at unh.edu)

If you are interested in being added to the list, being removed from
the list, or posting an announcement, please send information to
Nathan, Mihir, Eric, Merav, Adele, or Nick. Posts are limited to ascii
text. Newsletters are archived on the following website:

http://heliospherenews.unh.edu/

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** Announcements
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1. NASA/Heliophysics Call for ROSES16 Panel Volunteers

2. ISSI Post-doc positions

3. ASTRONUM-2016

4. Call For Abstracts for  two sessions at the 2016 SHINE workshop
— 4A Session : Understanding the Origin and Transport of GLEs with Modern Observations
Convenors: Georgia de Nolfo, Jim Ryan, and Gen Li, and Eric Christian
— 4B Session 13. Heliosphere as Revealed from IBEX and Voyager Measurements
Nikolai Pogorelov, Merav Opher, and George Gloeckler

5. MEETING: International Astronomical Union Symposium 328 "Living around Active Stars," 17-21 October, 2016, Maresias, SP, Brazil

6. SCOSTEP Visiting Scholarship – Call for Applications 2016

7.  Project SMART Summer Institute  2016

8. Recent Papers

— 8A: J.M. Sokół, M. Bzowski, M. A. Kubiak, E. Möbius  – 2016, Solar cycle variation of interstellar neutral He, Ne, O density and pick-up ions along the Earth’s orbit, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 458, Issue 4, pp 3691-3704, doi:10.1093/mnras/stw515 (http://dx.doi.org/2010.1093/mnras/stw515, http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.01186)

— 8B: Kubiak, M.A., Swaczyna, P., Bzowski, M., Sokół, J.M., Fuselier, S.A., Galli, A., Heirtzler, D., Kucharek, H., Leonard, T.W., McComas, D.J., Möbius, E., Park, J., Schwadron, N.A., Wurz, P. – 2016, Interstellar neutral helium in the heliosphere from IBEX observations. IV. Flow vector, Mach number, and abundance of the Warm Breeze, Ap.J.S.223:35, 10.3847/0067-0049/223/2/35

— 8C:  “Two new publications on the IBEX Ribbon.”
 P. Swaczyna, M. Bzowski, E. R. Christian, H. O. Funsten, D. J. McComas, and N. A. Schwadron, “Distance to the IBEX Ribbon Source Inferred from Parallax,” ApJ, in press, http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.09134
P. Swaczyna, M. Bzowski, and J. M. Sokol, “The Energy-Dependent Position of the IBEX Ribbon due to the Solar Wind Structure,” submitted to ApJ, http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.05079

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1) NASA/Heliophysics Call for ROSES16 Panel Volunteers

The 2016 ROSES competition of Heliophysics programs encourages volunteers for review panels to sign up on the NASA Service and Advice for Research and Analysis (SARA) web site. Sign-up is now open for several of the Heliophysics solicitations (see list below), while others will follow in a later call. Please make sure you sign up before April 30, 2016.

Signing up does not commit you to serve, nor will NASA be obligated to invite you to serve on a review panel.  Instead, the availability of panel volunteers will aid the program officers to more efficiently fill panel vacancies, and it will enhance the quality of the peer review process with the identification of additional expertise. An additional goal is to shorten the time between proposal submission and selection/notification. The community benefits through broadening the peer review panel as well as broadening their own personal experience.
If you are an active researcher in the field of Heliophysics, Postdoc level and beyond, you are encouraged to sign up. We understand that your schedules fill up quickly, and therefore we ask you to identify which weeks of the review windows you would be available to serve. Typical review duration is 3-4 days.

The following programs currently solicit review panel volunteers for in-person (or virtual) reviews in the May/June, September through November and January time frame:
H-SR (ROSES16 Appendix B.2 Heliophysics Supporting Research)
H-TIDeS (ROSES16 Appendix B.3 Heliophysics Technology and Instrument Development for Science)
H-GI Open (ROSES16 Appendix B.4 Heliophysics Guest Investigators – Open Element)
H-GCR TMS (ROSES16 Appendix B.5 Heliophysics Grand Challenges Research – Theory/Modeling/ Simulations Element)
H-DEE (ROSES16 Appendix B.7 Heliophysics Data Environment Enhancements)

The following programs will solicit reviewer volunteers at a later date:
H-LWS (ROSES16 Appendix B.6 Heliophysics Living With a Star Science)
H-GI MMS (ROSES16 Appendix B.8 Heliophysics Guest Investigators - MMS)
H-GCT SC (ROSES16 Appendix B.9 Heliophysics Grand Challenges Research – Science Centers)
H-USPI (ROSES16 Appendix B.10 Heliophysics US Principal Investigators)

You will not be eligible to participate in panel reviews of those programs that you submit to as a PI, Co-I or Collaborator/Consultant. Therefore, you will be asked to self-select the program(s) you expect to be available and eligible for.

The sign-up process is simple, fast and confidential. You can sign up under the following URL:

http://science.nasa.gov/researchers/volunteer-review-panels/roses-2016-heliophysics-programs/

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2) ISSI Post-doc positions

ISSI invites applications for Two Post-Doctoral Positions for a two-year period starting in October 2016 or by agreement. One of the two positions is in Space Sciences, the other is in Earth Sciences. The successful candidates should have received a Ph.D. within the last five years in a field relating to either Space or Earth Sciences in general. All applications must be received by ISSI no later than July 31st, 2016.

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3) ASTRONUM-2016

Monterey, California, USA, 6-10 June, 2016

Maison de la Simulation (CEA/CNRS/UPS/UVSQ), France will organize ASTRONUM 2016 - the 11th International Conference on Numerical Modeling of Space Plasma Flows in Monterey, California, USA, on 6-10 June, 2016. The conference web site is https://www.icnsmeetings.com/conference/astronum2016/index.html

The conference will cover the following topics:

(1) Advanced numerical methods for space, astrophysical and geophysical flows; 
(2) Large-scale fluid-based, kinetic, and hybrid simulations;
(3) Turbulence and cosmic ray transport; 
(4) Magnetohydrodynamics
(5) Software packages for modeling and analyzing plasma flows / Visualisation

with the application to

(1) Physics of the Sun-Heliosphere-Magnetosphere;
(2) Interstellar medium and star formation;
(3) Cosmology and galaxy formation;
(4) Dynamo effect;
(5) Stellar Physics.

The purpose of the conference is to bring together leading experts in applied mathematics, space physics, astrophysics, and geophysics to discuss the application of novel numerical algorithms and petascale parallelization strategies to computationally challenging problems.
The conference will be structured around invited, 40-minute keynote and 25-minute regular talks, and a limited number of contributed talks, with the attempt to have no parallel sessions. The conference web site icnsmeetings.com will provide the information about the conference venue, registration, and means of transportation. E-mail inquiries about the meeting should be directed to Nikolai.Pogorelov at uah.edu and Edouard.Audit at cea.fr.

Program Committee: Tahar Amari (CNRS Ecole Polytechnique), Edouard Audit (CEA, Maison de la Simulation, co-chair), Amitava Bhattacharjee (Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory), Phillip Colella (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), Anthony Mezzacappa (University of Tennessee, Knoxville), Ewald Mu?ller (Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics, Garching), Nikolai Pogorelov (University of Alabama in Huntsville, chair), Kazunari Shibata (Kyoto University), James Stone (Princeton University), Jon Linker (Predictive Science Inc.), and Gary P. Zank (University of Alabama in Huntsville).

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4) Call For Abstracts for  two sessions at the 2016 SHINE workshop

4A Session : Understanding the Origin and Transport of GLEs with Modern Observations
Convenors: Georgia de Nolfo, Jim Ryan, and Gen Li, and Eric Christian

4B Session 13. Heliosphere as Revealed from IBEX and Voyager Measurements
Nikolai Pogorelov, Merav Opher, and George Gloeckler

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4A Session : Understanding the Origin and Transport of GLEs with Modern Observations
Convenors: Georgia de Nolfo, Jim Ryan, and Gen Li, and Eric Christian

How the highest energy solar energetic particles, the so called Ground Level Enhancements (GLEs) are accelerated to GeV energies remains a mystery. Both acceleration through flare reconnection and CME-driven shocks are plausible, but the question remains as to their relative importance in driving the highest energy SEP events. While these high-energy particles often reach near Earth with minimal transport effects compared to the widely studied low-energy SEPs, the spectral shape, anisotropy, and time-evolution of GLEs suggest that transport is important in interpreting these events.  This session will focus on the origin and transport of the highest energy (>100 MeV) particles in SEP events, with a focus on GLEs and high-energy SEP events that may fail to register in neutron monitors, the so-called sub-GLEs (e.g. Jan 6 2014, Jan 27 2012). 

Solar cycle 24 has provided an unprecedented view of GLE events including the first spectral and pitch angle measurements of GLEs over a wide range in energy from PAMELA and AMS, complementing the observations of traditional ground-based instruments. In addition, multi-point observations from spacecraft at 1 AU and the STEREO spacecraft provide detailed contextual data, particularly on CME structure and evolution and potential magnetic connectivity. While solar cycle 24 brings excited new observations to shed light on the GLE process, we welcome discussions on high-energy events from previous solar cycles. 

Our session will expand on the discussion from SHINE 2015, focusing on the following questions: 

- What is the spectral shape (and its evolution) over a broad energy range and how does this constrain models of acceleration? Are there spectral roll-overs, breaks?

- Is there a relationship between the anisotropic phase and it's evolution with time and the spectral shape (and its evolution)? 

- Do all GLEs exhibit an anisotropic phase? What about sub-GLEs? Isotropy at later times appears to be universal. 

- What spectral features and/or pitch angle differences do we expect between GLE events that are well-connected. such as 2012 May 17, and other events (not necessarily GLEs) originating from the eastern hemisphere, e.g., 2012 March 7? 

- Several of the GLEs in cycle 24 are associated with high-energy gamma-ray observations from Fermi/LAT. How or do the gamma-ray observations influence our understanding of GLE particle acceleration? Are the particles in the flare and those in space related, and how?

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4B Session 13. Heliosphere as Revealed from IBEX and Voyager Measurements
Nikolai Pogorelov, Merav Opher, and George Gloeckler

Session Description:

In situ observations by Voyager 1 and Voyager 2, combined with the heliosheath tomography using energetic neutral hydrogen fluxes measured by the Interstellar Boundary Explorer (IBEX) in different energy bands gives the space physics community a unique opportunity to investigate the fundamental physical processes accompanying the solar wind (SW) interaction with the local interstellar medium (LISM).  The proposed session will address microscopic and macroscopic phenomena derived from IBEX and Voyager observations, and especially their combination. It will particularly focus on the following scientific questions:

1. What is the effect of the coupling of the heliospheric and interstellar magnetic fields at the heliopause? What is the correlation between observations and model predictions for the magnetic field and plasma quantities? What do space-time variations in the magnetic structure tell us about the physics of the heliosphere and termination shock?
2. What are the physical mechanisms of the IBEX ribbon and distributed ENA fluxes?
3. What are the ion acceleration mechanisms in the inner heliosheath? How do anomalous cosmic rays affect the structure of the heliosphere? What are the reasons of the variation in the galactic and anomalous cosmic ray fluxes observed by Voyager 1?

Scene-setting presentations will be given by David McComas and John Richardson on behalf of the IBEX and Voyager mission teams, respectively, and followed by a discussion on the themes of the session.

SHINE 2016 Conference Info:

Workshop Dates: July 11th-15th, 2016
(Student Day July 10th)
Location: Santa Fe, New Mexico
Registration Fee: $475
Early Bird Registration Deadline: May 20th
Late Registration: $525
Deadline for student support: April 29th
Deadline for abstract submission: June 9th (extra poster $50)
Hotel Reservation Deadline: June 9th

http://shinecon.org/CurrentMeeting.php

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5)  MEETING: International Astronomical Union Symposium 328 "Living around Active Stars," 17-21 October, 2016, Maresias, SP, Brazil

From: Dibyendu Nandi (dnandi at iiserkol.ac.in)

First Announcement

Rationale: The variable activity of stars such as the Sun is mediated via stellar magnetic fields, radiative and energetic particle fluxes, stellar winds and magnetic storms. This activity influences planetary atmospheres, climate and habitability. Studies of this intimate relationship between the parent star, its astrosphere (i.e., the equivalent of the heliosphere) and the planets that it hosts have reached a certain level of maturity within our own Solar System – fuelled both by advances in theoretical modeling and a host of satellites that observe the Sun-Earth system. In conjunction, the first attempts are being made to characterize the interactions between stars and planets and their coupled evolution, which have relevance for habitability and the search for habitable planets. This Symposium will bring together scientists from diverse, interdisciplinary scientific areas such as solar, stellar and planetary physics, atmospheric and climate physics and astrobiology to review the current state of our understanding of solar and stellar environments.  The Symposium is expected to fertilize exchange of ideas and identify outstanding issues – tackling which necessitates coordinated scientific efforts across disciplines. 

Invited Speakers: Anil Bhardwaj (India), Cesar Bertucci (Argentina), Paul Charbonneau (Canada), Manuel Guedel (Austria), Gaitee Hussain (Germany), Moira Jardine (UK), Colin Johnstone (Austria), Laurène Jouve (France),  Eiichiro Kokubo (Japan), Hiroyuki Maehara (Japan), Jose Dias do Nascimento Jr. (Brazil), Rachel Olsten (USA), Katja Poppenhaeger (UK), Steve Saar (USA), Alexander Shapiro (Germany)

Specifics: The symposium will be held in the sea side town of Maresias, Brazil from 17-21 October, 2016. Further details, including registration, abstract submission, financial support and accommodation information are available at the conference websites:

http://www.sab-astro.org.br/IAUS328

Financial support application deadline: 30 April 2016
Abstract submission deadline: 16 June 2016
Early Registration deadline: 16 July 2016

On behalf of the Organizing Committees we welcome you to the IAUS 328 and look forward to hosting you in Maresias, Brazil.

Scientific Organizing Committee: Dibyendu Nandi (Chair), Sarah Gibson (Co-Chair), Pascal Petit (Co-Chair), Margit Haberreiter, Emre Isik, Heidi Korhonen, Kanya Kusano, Duncan Mackay, Cristina Mandrini, Allan Sacha-Brun, Adriana Valio, Aline Vidotto, David Webb

Local Organizing Committee: Adriana Valio (Chair), Gustavo Guerrero (Co-Chair), Alisson Dal Lago, Jorge Melendez, Emilia Correia, Caius L. Selhorst

Contact: iaustars328 at gmail.com

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6)  SCOSTEP Visiting Scholarship – Call for Applications 2016

From: Marianna Shepherd (mshepher at yorku.ca)

The submission of applications for the 2016 SCOSTEP Visiting Scholarship is now open.  

The SCOSTEP Visiting Scholar (SVS) program is a capacity building activity of SCOSTEP (Scientific Committee on Solar-Terrestrial Physics), which complements the current scientific program, VarSITI (Variability of the Sun and its Terrestrial Impact, http://www.varsiti.org/) and SCOSTEP’s public outreach activities.

The objective of the SVS program is to provide training to young scientists and graduate students from developing countries in well-established solar terrestrial physics institutes, for one to three months. The training will help the young scientists to advance their career in solar terrestrial physics using the technique/skill they learned during the training. SCOSTEP will provide the airfare, while the host institute will provide the living expenses (accommodation, sustenance, ground transportation, visa fees and other incidentals). Trainees should have their own health insurance or arrange a provision with the host institution.

Interested candidates should contact one of the SVS program hosts listed at http://www.yorku.ca/scostep/?page_id=2103 and work out the details of the visit. Once the applicant and the host agree on a visit, the applicant needs to prepare an application package including the following details of the visit: (i) work to be performed; (ii) applicant’s curriculum vitae, (iii) dates of the visit and an estimate of the airfare in economy class; (iv) letter from the applicant’s supervisor, and (v) a letter from the host scientist/institution. A single pdf file of the above materials should be sent to SCOSTEP’s Scientific Secretary, Dr. Marianna G. Shepherd (mshepher at yorku.ca). Deadline for applications: May 25, 2016. 

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7) Project SMART Summer Institute  2016

(Science and Mathematics Achievement Through Research Training)

A Fast-Paced Month of Science for High School Students

University of New Hampshire Project SMART Summer Institute is accepting
applications from (current) high school sophomores and juniors for the
25th year of its program in 2016. The program has a rolling admission
policy, accepting applicants on first-come first-admit basis, based on
applicant?s interest and aptitude in science and mathematics. The 2016
program runs from June 26 to July 22. The program offers three modules;
Biotechnology & Nanotechnology, Marine & Environmental Science, and
Space Science, each admitting up to 25 students.

Project SMART program challenges, educates, and motivates talented high
school students in science and mathematics. The program is open to
students who are currently enrolled (or home schooled) as sophomores
(10th grade) and juniors (11th grade). The participants study advanced
topics in science, mathematics and computers through lectures,
discussions, hands-on laboratory experience, and field trips; and learn
to do research with UNH faculty.

The Summer Institute is an excellent opportunity to learn the
interdisciplinary nature of the various scientific fields and the
applications and implications (economic, social, environmental, legal,
ethical and moral) of recent scientific advancements to society. In
addition to learning/doing science, the students gain a greater
appreciation for careers in the various sciences and establish
friendships with their peers, and mentoring relationships with the UNH
faculty.

The group of student participants is highly talented and includes those
who have already shown interest and aptitude in sciences.

The group is highly diverse, and includes a significant proportion of
participants from minority, underrepresented, economically
disadvantaged, and rural as well as inner-city environs within the US
(from Alaska to Puerto Rico and in between) and several other countries
(e.g. Greece, Turkey, Jordan, Kazakhstan).

Project SMART is a residential program. The students stay in UNH
dormitories. Over the weekends they participate in special programs
like: visits to the Boston Museum of Science, the New England Aquarium,
a whale watching trip to the Ocean, the top of Mt. Washington by Cog
railway, Long Term Experimental Forests, the local malls and the movies,
etc., which also enhance social interaction among the students. What a
way to get connected to your peers. Weekend stay for local students is
optional.

On the final day of the program, students present a scientific poster at
a three-hour long session, which is attended by more than 200 students,
faculty, teachers, parents, UNH administrators and invited guests.

Special evening discussions focus on college admissions, diversity
issues, and careers in science.

For more information go to www.smart.unh.edu

For information on the space science module:
http://projectsmartspacescience.sr.unh.edu/

Please share this information with friends and colleagues.

The Space Science module of Project SMART is partially supported by the
NSF Sun-to-Ice project.

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8) Recent Papers

8A — J.M. Sokół, M. Bzowski, M. A. Kubiak, E. Möbius  – 2016, Solar cycle variation of interstellar neutral He, Ne, O density and pick-up ions along the Earth’s orbit, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 458, Issue 4, pp 3691-3704, doi:10.1093/mnras/stw515 (http://dx.doi.org/2010.1093/mnras/stw515, http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.01186)

Sokół et al. 2016 explain the systematic effects due to the solar activity cycle that most likely affected the determination of the ISN gas flow direction from PUI observations.

8B — Kubiak, M.A., Swaczyna, P., Bzowski, M., Sokół, J.M., Fuselier, S.A., Galli, A., Heirtzler, D., Kucharek, H., Leonard, T.W., McComas, D.J., Möbius, E., Park, J., Schwadron, N.A., Wurz, P. – 2016, Interstellar neutral helium in the heliosphere from IBEX observations. IV. Flow vector, Mach number, and abundance of the Warm Breeze, Ap.J.S.223:35, 10.3847/0067-0049/223/2/35

Based on data from 5 IBEX observation seasons, we have determined the abundance, temperature, and inflow velocity vector of the Warm Breeze more precisely than in the discovery paper by Kubiak et al. 2014. The inflow direction we have now obtained is co-planar with the direction of ISN He we obtained in 2015 (the ApJS Special Issue), with the ISN H inflow direction, obtained by Lallement et al. in 2005  and 2010, and, interestingly, with the center of the Ribbon (Funsten et al., 2013). The co-planarity is obtained with a very good precision, well within the error bars. This strongly suggests that the Warm Breeze is the secondary component of ISN He that is created in the outer heliosheath. Since, on one hand,  models suggest that the secondary population is created relatively close to the heliopause, and on the other hand, the distance to the Ribbon has been determined from parallax by Pawel Swaczyna et al. (http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.05079) also to be just beyond the heliopause, this suggests that things start clicking together: the Ribbon is due to the secondary ENA mechanism, it traces the condition B dot r = 0 in the sky, and since it is created relatively close to the heliopause, this B field must be draped. By analyzing the Warm Breeze we will have an unprecedented opportunity to experimentally study the flow and physical state of the interstellar matter in the outer heliosheath, which will be, to our knowledge, for the first time in the history of heliospheric physics.

is available at the ApJS web site:
http://dx.doi.org/10.3847/0067-0049/223/2/25,
and at arXiv:
http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.01741

8C — “Two new publications on the IBEX Ribbon.”

 P. Swaczyna, M. Bzowski, E. R. Christian, H. O. Funsten, D. J. McComas, and N. A. Schwadron, “Distance to the IBEX Ribbon Source Inferred from Parallax,” ApJ, in press, http://arxiv.org/abs/1603.09134

In the paper, we found that based on a careful analysis of IBEX data, the distance to the IBEX ribbon could be measured using parallax. The energy-combined parallax angle is 0.41±0.15 deg, and thus the distance to the ribbon source is 140[+84,-38] AU.

P. Swaczyna, M. Bzowski, and J. M. Sokol, “The Energy-Dependent Position of the IBEX Ribbon due to the Solar Wind Structure,” submitted to ApJ, http://arxiv.org/abs/1604.05079

Based on a relatively simple analytic model of the secondary ENA emission we showed that the monotonic sequence formed by the ribbon centers in IBEX-Hi energy channels, found by Funsten et al. (2013, ApJ 776:30), is a consequence of the helio-latitudinal structure of the solar wind. 