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1. MHD and Ion Kinetic Waves in Field-aligned Flows Observed by Parker Solar Probe

   https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac28fb  

   Zhao, L.-L. ; Zank, G. P. ; He, J. S. ; Telloni, D. ; Adhikari, L. ; Nakanotani, M. ; Kasper, J. C. ; Bale, S. D. ( November 2021 , The Astrophysical Journal)

   Abstract Parker Solar Probe (PSP) observed predominately Alfvénic fluctuations in the solar wind near the Sun where the magnetic field tends to be radially aligned. In this paper, two magnetic-field-aligned solar wind flow intervals during PSP’s first two orbits are analyzed. Observations of these intervals indicate strong signatures of parallel/antiparallel-propagating waves. We utilize multiple analysis techniques to extract the properties of the observed waves in both magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) and kinetic scales. At the MHD scale, outward-propagating Alfvén waves dominate both intervals, and outward-propagating fast magnetosonic waves present the second-largest contribution in the spectral energy density. At kinetic scales, we identifymore »the circularly polarized plasma waves propagating near the proton gyrofrequency in both intervals. However, the sense of magnetic polarization in the spacecraft frame is observed to be opposite in the two intervals, although they both possess a sunward background magnetic field. The ion-scale plasma wave observed in the first interval can be either an inward-propagating ion cyclotron wave (ICW) or an outward-propagating fast-mode/whistler wave in the plasma frame, while in the second interval it can be explained as an outward ICW or inward fast-mode/whistler wave. The identification of the exact kinetic wave mode is more difficult to confirm owing to the limited plasma data resolution. The presence of ion-scale waves near the Sun suggests that ion cyclotron resonance may be one of the ubiquitous kinetic physical processes associated with small-scale magnetic fluctuations and kinetic instabilities in the inner heliosphere.« less
2. Proton form factor ratio \mu_p G_E^p/G_M^p from double spin asymmetry

   Liyanage, A. ; Armstrong, W. ; Kang, H. ; Maxwell, J. ; Mulholland, J. ; Ndukum, L. ; Ahmidouch, A. ; Albayrak, I. ; Asaturyan, A. ; Ates, O. ; et al ( March 2020 , Physical review)

   The ratio of the electric to magnetic form factors of the proton, μpGEp/GMp, has been measured for elastic electron-proton scattering with polarized beam and target up to four-momentum transfer squared Q2=5.66(GeV/c)2 using double spin asymmetry for target spin orientation aligned nearly perpendicular to the beam momentum direction. This measurement of μpGEp/GMp agrees with the Q2 dependence of previous recoil polarization data and reconfirms the discrepancy at high Q2 between the Rosenbluth and the polarization-transfer method with a different measurement technique and systematic uncertainties uncorrelated to those of the recoil-polarization measurements. The form factor ratio at Q2=2.06(GeV/c)2 has been measured asmore »μpGEp/GMp=0.720±0.176stat±0.039sys, which is in agreement with an earlier measurement using the polarized target technique at similar kinematics. The form factor ratio at Q2=5.66(GeV/c)2 has been determined as μpGEp/GMp=0.244±0.353stat±0.013sys, which represents the highest Q2 measurement reached using double spin asymmetries with polarized target to date.« less
3. Measurements of linear polarization of satellite transitions from Li- and Be-like Ar ions

   Gall, A.C. ; Dipti, FNU ; Buechele, S.W. ; Sanders, S. ; Szabo, C.I. ; Silwal, R. ; Ralchenko, Yu. ; Brickhouse, N. ; Takacs, E. ( June 2020 , Journal of physics)

   Non-thermal electron distributions, such as beams of electrons, are found in many laboratory and astrophysical plasma sources and can produce anisotropic and polarized emission. Theories used to model the emission require sublevel specific analysis, which can be difficult to verify experimentally. Using two polarization-sensitive Johann-type crystal spectrometers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) electron beam ion trap facility, we measured the linear polarization of well-known dielectronic recombination satellite transitions from Li-like Ar ions and two blended features from Be-like ions. The spectrometers observed the plasma at 90◦ relative to the electron beam propagation direction, and the crystalmore »dispersion planes were oriented perpendicular relative to each other to allow for differing polarization sensitivities. Measurements were taken near the resonance energies of each line and compared with theoretical predictions based on relativistic magnetic sublevel atomic kinetics using the density-matrix theory. Most of the predictions are in excellent agreement with measured values.« less
4. Determining the helicity structure of the nucleon at the Electron Ion Collider in China

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP08(2021)034  

   Anderle, Daniele Paolo ; Hou, Tie-Jiun ; Xing, Hongxi ; Yan, Mengshi ; Yuan, C.-P. ; Zhao, Yuxiang ( August 2021 , Journal of High Energy Physics)

   A bstract Understanding how sea quarks behave inside a nucleon is one of the most important physics goals of the proposed Electron-Ion Collider in China (EicC), which is designed to have a 3.5 GeV polarized electron beam (80% polarization) colliding with a 20 GeV polarized proton beam (70% polarization) at instantaneous luminosity of 2 × 10 33 cm − 2 s − 1 . A specific topic at EicC is to understand the polarization of individual quarks inside a longitudinally polarized nucleon. The potential of various future EicC data, including the inclusive and semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering data from bothmore »doubly polarized electron-proton and electron- 3 He collisions, to reduce the uncertainties of parton helicity distributions is explored at the next-to-leading order in QCD, using the Error PDF Updating Method Package ( e P ump ) which is based on the Hessian profiling method. We show that the semi-inclusive data are well able to provide good separation between flavour distributions, and to constrain their uncertainties in the x > 0 . 005 region, especially when electron- 3 He collisions, acting as effective electron-neutron collisions, are taken into account. To enable this study, we have generated a Hessian representation of the DSSV14 set of PDF replicas, named DSSV14H PDFs.« less
5. Electron acceleration using twisted laser wavefronts

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6587/ac318d  

   Shi, Yin ; R Blackman, David ; Arefiev, Alexey ( November 2021 , Plasma Physics and Controlled Fusion)

   Abstract Using plasma mirror injection we demonstrate, both analytically and numerically, that a circularly polarized helical laser pulse can accelerate highly collimated dense bunches of electrons to several hundred MeV using currently available laser systems. The circular-polarized helical (Laguerre–Gaussian) beam has a unique field structure where the transverse fields have helix-like wave-fronts which tend to zero on-axis where, at focus, there are large on-axis longitudinal magnetic and electric fields. The acceleration of electrons by this type of laser pulse is analyzed as a function of radial mode number and it is shown that the radial mode number has a profoundmore »effect on electron acceleration close to the laser axis. Using three-dimensional particle-in-cell simulations a circular-polarized helical laser beam with power of 0.6 PW is shown to produce several dense attosecond bunches. The bunch nearest the peak of the laser envelope has an energy of 0.47 GeV with spread as narrow as 10%, a charge of 26 pC with duration of ∼ 400 as, and a very low divergence of 20 mrad. The confinement by longitudinal magnetic fields in the near-axis region allows the longitudinal electric fields to accelerate the electrons over a long period after the initial reflection. Both the longitudinal E and B fields are shown to be essential for electron acceleration in this scheme. This opens up new paths toward attosecond electron beams, or attosecond radiation, at many laser facilities around the world.« less