AbstractThe report of the 2024 decadal survey for the solar and space physics community was released on 2024 December 5 and has space weather science and applications as a central goal to explore and safeguard humanity's home in space. I discuss some of the main recommendations associated with space weather that will drive our field in the next decade.
This article proposes a hypothesis. We connect the Klein-Gordon equation through the formula of Fermat's last theorem. The above procedure has an integer solution when n is less than or equal to 2. However, through domain expansion, when n is greater than 2, we connect the Klein-Gordon equation to Fermat. The last theorem, the Klein-Gordon equation has no integer solution; then it expands, forming the algebraic form of ds space-time.
AbstractObservations from satellites demonstrate that small‐scale, localized packages of VLF waves are frequently detected inside the field‐aligned density depletions (low‐density ducts) and enhancements (high‐density ducts) with comparable sizes. Because the conditions for the wave trapping in these inhomogeneities depend on the parameters of the wave and the duct, the information about the background media can be used to find parameters of the wave trapped in the duct. We present results from the modeling study of the propagation of VLF whistler‐mode waves in the field‐aligned density inhomogeneities with the perpendicular sizes comparable to (and even less than) one perpendicular wavelength of the wave inside the duct. Simulations of the electron‐MHD model reproduce in good quantitative detail observations from the satellites and let us identify perpendicular and parallel wavelengths of the waves trapped in the ducts. Simulations also reveal the conditions causing trapping of the oblique VLF waves in the low‐density and high‐density ducts with the transverse size comparable with the perpendicular wavelength of the smallest (and most oblique) wave inside the duct.
AbstractFifty years of collaboration between the authors are reviewed. Common themes cover magnetospheric magnetohydrodynamic phenomena: MHD waves, wave‐particle interactions, circulation, global modes and field line resonances in the terrestrial context, and magnetosphere‐moon interactions, transport processes, instabilities, and global structure in the magnetospheres of giant planets. Over the period reviewed, instrumentation has improved, particularly in particle detectors, and interpretations that seemed radical when first suggested are now supported by measurements and seem commonplace.
AbstractThe foundations for my professional life began at Stanford University, thanks to a four year Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps scholarship and, in my fifth year, securing a graduate research assistantship. Although I was enrolled at Stanford as an Electrical Engineering major, I took many physics classes. My Physics teachers included Willis Lamb and Robert Hofstadter (Nobel Prize winning faculty) as well as the renowned Wolfgang Panofsky. In addition, I had close contact with two Physics graduate assistants: Henry Kendall (who later became a Nobel Prize winner) and James Bjorken (who was awarded the coveted Wolf Prize in physics). From these contacts and my classes, I came to learn that Physics would be my lifetime intellectual home. Not incidentally, Kendall and Bjorken were also responsible for my collegiate addiction to rock climbing, usually on the soft sandstone near Stanford but also along the walls of Yosemite Valley and peaks of Tuolumne Meadows.
AbstractSpace physics is the study of Earth's home in space. Elements of space physics include how the Sun works from its interior to its atmosphere, the environment between the Sun and planets out to the interstellar medium, and the physics of the magnetic barriers surrounding Earth and other planets. Space physics is highly relevant to society. Space weather, with its goal of predicting how Earth's technological infrastructure responds to activity on the Sun, is an oft‐cited example, but there are many more. Space physics has important impacts in formulating public policy.
AbstractThe magnetosphere of Uranus has barely been explored by spacecraft but is distinct from other solar system magnetospheres in many respects. Determining how this magnetosphere is coupled to the solar wind is central to understanding energy flow through the system. Here we assess how the solar wind interacts with the Uranian magnetosphere via magnetic reconnection. Analytical models of conditions at the magnetopause are combined with current understanding of reconnection onset to predict where reconnection may occur on the boundary. The results suggest that conditions at Uranus' magnetopause are generally less favorable for reconnection than those at the magnetopause of any planet closer to the Sun, as a result of how typical solar wind parameters vary with heliocentric distance. The location of reconnection sites on the Uranian magnetopause is likely to be highly dependent on not only the interplanetary magnetic field orientation but also planetary longitude and season. Solar wind–magnetosphere coupling via magnetic reconnection may be stronger under near‐solstice conditions than under near‐equinox conditions. We discuss the typical reconnection electric field strength at Uranus' magnetopause and suggest that the typical reconnection voltage is considerably less than 40 kV. Complimentary assessments of other means of coupling to the solar wind (e.g., via a “viscous‐like” interaction) are needed to establish the overall nature of solar wind–magnetosphere coupling at Uranus.