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The space hurricane is a newly discovered large-scale three-dimensional magnetic vortex structure that spans the polar ionosphere and magnetosphere. At the height of the ionosphere, it has a strong circular horizontal plasma flow with a nearly zero-flow center and a coincident cyclone-shaped aurora caused by strong electron precipitation associated with intense upward magnetic field-aligned currents. By analyzing the long-term optical observation onboard the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) F16 satellite from 2005 to 2016, we found that space hurricanes in the Northern Hemisphere occur in summer and have a maximum occurrence rate in the afternoon sector around solar maximum. In particular, space hurricanes are more likely to occur in the dayside polar cap at magnetic latitudes greater than 80°, and their MLT (magnetic local time) dependence shows a positive relationship with the IMF (interplanetary magnetic field) clock angle. We also found that space hurricanes occur mainly under dominant positive IMF By and Bz and negative Bx conditions. It is suggested that the stable high-latitude lobe reconnection, which occurs under the conditions of a large Earth’s dipole tilt angle and high ionosphere conductivity in summer, should be the formation mechanism of space hurricanes. The result will give a better understanding of the solar wind–magnetosphere–ionosphere coupling process under northward IMF conditions. 

We develop a new heavy quark transport model, QLBT, to simulate the dynamical propagation of heavy quarks inside the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Our QLBT model is based on the linear Boltzmann transport (LBT) model with the ideal QGP replaced by a collection of quasi-particles to account for the non-perturbative interactions among quarks and gluons of the hot QGP. The thermal masses of quasi-particles are fitted to the equation of state from lattice QCD simulations using the Bayesian statistical analysis method. Combining QLBT with our advanced hybrid fragmentation-coalescence hadronization approach, we calculate the nuclear modification factor$$R_\mathrm {AA}$$$R_{\mathrm{AA}}$and the elliptic flow$$v_2$$$v_2$ofDmesons at the Relativistic Heavy-Ion Collider and the Large Hadron Collider. By comparing our QLBT calculation to the experimental data on theDmeson$$R_\mathrm {AA}$$$R_{\mathrm{AA}}$and$$v_2$$$v_2$, we extract the heavy quark transport parameter$$\hat{q}$$$\hat{q}$and diffusion coefficient$$D_\mathrm {s}$$$D_s$in the temperature range of$$1-4~T_\mathrm {c}$$$1-4T_c$, and compare them with the lattice QCD results and other phenomenological studies.