[SPA] SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER, Volume XXIV, Issue 16

Tue Mar 14 16:42:05 PDT 2017

AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION
SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER
Volume XXIV, Issue 16
Mar.14,2017

Editor: Peter Chi
Co-Editor: Guan Le
Distribution Support: Sharon Uy, Marjorie Sowmendran, Todd King, Kevin Addison
E-mail: editor at igpp.ucla.edu
Announcement Submission Website: http://goo.gl/forms/qjcm4dDr4g

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Table of Contents

1. The First Campaign Observations for Arase (ERG) and Ground-based Observations

2. MEETING: Workshop on Kappa Distributions & Statistical Mechanics, Theory & Applications in space plasmas, Corfu, Greece, 10-14 July 2017

3. MEETING: International Conference on Substorms (ICS13), Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA, September 25-29, 2017 -- Second Circular

4. MEETING: Helicity Thinkshop-3; 19-23 November 2017, Tokyo, Japan -- Preliminary Announcement

5. VSO Clients Will Require a Recent IDL Version

6. Course on “Cosmic Ray Physics in Space”: Deadline extended

7. Two RHESSI Science Nuggets

8. New Appointment in the Geospace Section of NSF’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences

9. PhD Research Fellowship in Plasma Physics and Technology at the University of Oslo, Norway

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The First Campaign Observations for Arase (ERG) and Ground-based Observations

From: Yoshi Miyoshi, Iku Shinohara, and Kazuo Shiokawa (miyoshi at isee.nagoya-u.ac.jp)

As you may have known that, Japanese geospace exploration satellite Arase (ERG) was successfully launched in December 2016.

The critical phase operation after the launch has successfully been done and shortly we will move on to the initial phase operation. In this initial phase, we are going  to conduct a campaign observation from the end of March.

Plots of both the definitive and predicted orbit of Arase are available from the conjunction event finder at ERG-Science Center.

Conjunction Event Finder:
https://ergsc.isee.nagoya-u.ac.jp/analysis/cef/index.shtml.ja

The apogee MLT of the satellite has been the morning side until June, so that it is good period to observe chorus wave-particle interactions and resultant precipitation of energetic electrons.

We have a plan for a campaign observations between Arase and ground-based observations in this spring (end of March ~ middle April), especially focusing on chorus-wave particle interactions and related phenomena and dynamics of the inner magnetosphere.

The campaign observation includes various ground-based observations; optical image rs at Canada/US/Scandinavia,EISCAT, and SuperDARN radars. The summary of campaign observations has been prepared in the following wiki site, and the list for conjugate observations between Arase and related ground-based site is also shown.

Campaign observations:
 https://ergsc.isee.nagoya-u.ac.jp/mw/index.php/CampaignObs/Campaign2017
EISCAT experiments:
 https://ergsc.isee.nagoya-u.ac.jp/mw/index.php/ErgGround/ErgEiscat
SuperDARN exepriments:
 https://ergsc.isee.nagoya-u.ac.jp/mw/index.php/ErgGround/ErgSd
Conjunction Interval Finder
 http://gwave.cei.uec.ac.jp/cgi-bin/hosokawa/erg/erg.cgi?year=2017&month=03&day=20&jump=Plot

We are happy to share this information and if you participate this observations in the coordinated investigations using your observations. We will welcome all your suggestions, questions, and proposed activities, and fhese can be sent to the e-mail of the contact. We are looking forward to fruitful results from this campaign.

Sincerely,

Arase(ERG)-project team

Contact:
Yoshi Miyoshi:        ERG Project Scientist (miyoshi at isee.nagoya-u.ac.jp)
Iku Shinohara:        ERG Project Manager (iku at stp.isas.jaxa.jp)
Kazuo Shiokawa:    ERG ground-based observations PI (shiokawa at isee.nagoya-u.ac.jp)

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MEETING: Workshop on Kappa Distributions & Statistical Mechanics, Theory & Applications in space plasmas, Corfu, Greece, 10-14 July 2017

From: George Livadiotis (glivadiotis at swri.edu)

MEETING: Workshop on Kappa Distributions & Non-Extensive Statistical Mechanics: Theory & Applications in Plasmas, held during the SigmaPhi2017 Conference (International Conference on STATISTICAL PHYSICS) in Corfu, Greece, 10-14 July 2017.

Workshop organized by: G. Livadiotis, P. Yoon and K. Dialynas

Abstract Submission Deadline: 18 April 2017.

We welcome abstracts reporting on the progress of the following three broad subject areas:

- Theory of Kappa Distributions and Statistical Framework: Non-extensive statistical mechanics; Superstatistics; Connection with thermodynamics; Entropy and information measure; Concept of temperature; Anisotropy of velocity space; Distributions with potential energy.

- Effects on Plasma Processes, Dynamics, and Complexity: Particle acceleration; Transport and diffusion; Plasma linear/nonlinear waves and instabilities; Shocks and Rankine–Hugoniot conditions; Polytropic relations; Plasma interactions; Particle correlations; Coupling phenomena; Turbulence and chaos; Mechanisms generating kappa distributions.

- Data Analyses, Simulations, and Applications in Space Plasmas: Solar/Stellar atmospheres; Flares/CMEs; Solar wind; Ionosphere; Terrestrial, planetary, and cometary magnetospheres; Heliosheath and interstellar plasmas; Nebular, galactic and intergalactic plasmas.

http://www.sigmaphi.polito.it/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=106&catid=21&Itemid=232

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MEETING: International Conference on Substorms (ICS13), Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA, September 25-29, 2017 -- Second Circular

From: Jimmy Raeder (J.Raeder at unh.edu)

The 13th International Conference on Substorms (ICS13) will be held in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, USA, at the Portsmouth Sheraton hotel (http://www.sheratonportsmouth.com/), September 25-29, 2017.  Portsmouth is located on the New Hampshire seacoast about 80 minutes north of Boston.

The meeting web site (http://ics13.unh.edu/) provides further information.  In particular, the registration, abstract submission, support request, and housing pages are now open.  We have reserved a limited number of preferred rate hotel rooms at the Sheraton, which will most likely be booked very quickly.  The web site lists numerous other housing options close to the meeting venue. September/October is still tourist season, so we recommend to book a hotel room (or using airbnb) as soon as possible. Limited funds are available to support students and post-docs.  Requests can be made through the web site.  A preliminary program page is also online.  Each day will start with a Socratic Dialogue on a specific topic.  Invited speakers are also penciled in, as far as they are confirmed, but the order of talks is still subject to change and will not be finalized until the week before the meeting.

Important deadlines:

April 15, 2017: Request financial support.
June 1, 2017: Abstract submission.
August 15, 2017: End of early registration, fees will increase 20% after that.
August 27, 2017:  Deadline to book a hotel room at the preferred rate at the Sheraton.

Social events:  The meeting banquet will take place on the Thomas Laighton (https://islesofshoals.com/cruises).  The meeting date is close to the peak of leafpeeping season (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leaf_peeping). At the meeting time, colors are starting to turn in and around Portsmouth. One to two hours drive north of Portsmouth the foliage will be in full color.

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MEETING: Helicity Thinkshop-3; 19-23 November 2017, Tokyo, Japan -- Preliminary Announcement

From: Kirill Kuzanyan, Nobumitsu Yokoi (kuzanyan at gmail.com)

The magnetic activities of the Sun and stars are intimately related to turbulent helicities: kinetic, magnetic, current, cross, etc. In the past, a Chapman Conference on Magnetic Helicity in Space and Laboratory Plasmas was held at Boulder, USA, in 1998 (Chair: Alexei Pevtsov), and two Helicity Thinkshops were held in Beijing at the National Astronomical Observatory of China in 2009 and 2013 (Chair: Hongqi Zhang). This time we organize Helicity Thinkshop-3 in Tokyo, Japan.

The aims of this Thinkshop are
(i) to share frontier knowledge on helicity stemming from observations (solar/stellar/geo), numerical simulations and experiments;
(ii) to promote closer collaboration between different research areas involved in helicity studies;
(iii) to construct models of phenomena involving helicity whose underlying physical mechanisms are not entirely understood.

Topics to be discussed 
- insights on and estimates of helicity in the Sun and solar wind, helical structures in other astro/geophysical context;
- role of helicities in solar and stellar flares and in coronal mass ejections with an emphasis on space weather phenomena and their coupling with the Earth environment;
- role of helicities in dynamo theories and numerical modelling;
- future directions in helicity studies.

Host Institutes:
Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), University of Tokyo
National Astronomical Observatory (NAOJ)

Sponsors:
IIS, University of Tokyo
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS, for participants from Japan)
Russia Foundation for Basic Research (RFBR, for participants from Russia)

Scientific Organizing Committee:
Axel Brandenburg (Sweden/USA), Manolis Georgoulis (Greece), Kirill Kuzanyan (Russia), Raffaele Marino (France), Alexei Pevtsov (USA/Finland), Takashi Sakurai (Japan), Dmitry Sokoloff (Russia), Nobumitsu Yokoi (Chair, Japan), Hongqi Zhang (China)

Local Organizing Committee:
Nobumitsu Yokoi (Chair, University of Tokyo), Takashi Sakurai (NAOJ), Yoichiro Hanaoka (NAOJ), Masaoki Hagino (NAOJ), Shin Toriumi (NAOJ)

Venues:
Institute of Industrial Science (IIS), University of Tokyo
National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ)

Preliminary Schedule:
Sunday Nov. 19 Registration.
Monday Nov. 20 through Thursday Nov. 23 Scientific Talks and Discussions including tour to Solar Observatory (NAOJ)

The details of the registration procedure will be given later in forthcoming announcement.

Questions or comments: Nobumitsu Yokoi: nobyokoi (at) iis.u-tokyo.ac.jp or Kirill Kuzanyan: kuzanyan (at) gmail.com

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VSO Clients Will Require a Recent IDL Version

From: Joe Gurman (joseph.b.gurman at nasa.gov)

Due to changed federal government IT requirements ("https only"), the VSO client software in IDL SolarSoft (vso_search and vso_get) will require version 8.4 (released in early 2014) or later of IDL. We plan to implement this change on 2017 May 15. The SunPy VSOClient software will have to be updated by then as well.

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Course on “Cosmic Ray Physics in Space”: Deadline extended

From: Umberto Villante (umberto.villante at aquila.infn.it)

The deadline for application to the Course on “Cosmic Ray Physics in Space” of the International School of Space Science, L’Aquila, Italy, June 12-16, 2017 has been extended to March 26th, 2017.
The International School of Space Science of the Consorzio Interuniversitario per la Fisica Spaziale organizes a Course on Cosmic Ray Physics in Space, to be held in L’Aquila, Italy, June 12-16, 2017, directed by M. Boezio, S. Coutu, R. Sparvoli. The course is designed for PhD students and young post-doctoral researchers. The school will offer an overview of current knowledge of the Physics of Galactic Cosmic Rays as observed with space-borne instruments in a broad sense, thus including charged particles and antiparticles, gamma rays and related topics on neutrinos. The connection with ground-based experiments will be explored. The most important space missions of the past, present and future will be presented. A special emphasis will be given to the indirect search for dark matter.
For more information visit http://www.cifs-isss.org/ or send an e-mail to ssc at aquila.infn.it

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Two RHESSI Science Nuggets

From: Hugh Hudson (hhudson at ssl.berkeley.edu)

No. 294, “Edward Chupp” 

No. 295, “Radio Emissions from Double RHESSI TGFs”, by Andrey Mezentsev and Thomas Gjesteland: Lightning helps with microsecond timing calibrations, and is really interesting as a phenomenon of high-energy astrophysics.

See 
http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/wiki/index.php/RHESSI_Science_Nuggets

listing the current series, 2008-present, and

http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/nuggets/ 

for the original series, 2005-2008.

We publish these at roughly two-week intervals and welcome contributions,
which should be related, at least loosely, to RHESSI science.

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New Appointment in the Geospace Section of NSF’s Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences

From: Therese Moretto Jorgensen (tjorgens at nsf.gov)

It’s a distinct pleasure for us to announce that Dr. Mike Wiltberbger has taken the position of Program Director for the Magnetosphere Program.  Dr. Wiltberger comes to NSF from NCAR/HAO, where he works as a senior research scientist and Head of the Atmosphere-Ionosphere-Magnetosphere Section. His main area of research is the modeling of the magnetosphere and its interaction with the solar wind and coupled thermosphere-ionosphere system. Dr. Wiltberger earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, in 1993 and his PhD. in space plasma physics in 1998 from the University of Maryland, College Park. Amongst his many scientific accomplishments are pioneering work on the inclusion of ionospheric outflow and the application of advanced statistical analysis in global models and ground-breaking results proving the connection between localized reconnection and, so-called, Bursty Bulk Flows in high-resolution simulations of the magnetotail. During his career, Dr. Wiltberger also has served in many important community functions, including as chair of the GEM Steering Committee, vice-chair of the AMS Science and Technology Committee on Space Weather, and as Vice Chair of the Solar Wind-Magnetosphere Interactions Panel of the 2010 NRC Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics.   Furthermore, he holds Adjunct Professor positions at Rice University and the University of Colorado at Boulder, through which he has supervised several graduate students.  

We are extremely grateful for the extensive experience and broad expertise Mike will add to the Magnetosphere program

At NSF Mike can be reached at: mwiltber at nsf.gov 

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PhD Research Fellowship in Plasma Physics and Technology at the University of Oslo, Norway

From: Lasse Clausen (lasse.clausen at fys.uio.no)

PhD Research Fellowship in Plasma Physics and Technology

Position as PhD Research fellow in Plasma Physics and Technology is available at The Department of Physics.

If the successful candidate has a good knowledge of one Scandinavian language (Norwegian, Swedish, Danish), the fellowship will be for a period of 4 years, with 25% compulsory work (teaching at the Department of Physics). Otherwise, the fellowship will be for a period of 3 years, with no compulsory work. Starting date no later than 01.10.2017.

No one can be appointed for more than one fixed-term period at the same institution.

Job/ project description:

The successful candidate will be a part of the Section for Plasma and Space Physics at The Department of Physics as well as the 4DSpace strategic research initiative. The main focus of these groups is to advance our understanding of high latitude electrodynamics and its impact on technological systems like GPS. The main tools used in these investigations are advanced numerical models, ground-based radar and optical systems, instruments on board spacecraft, and in situ measurements made by sounding rockets.

During this project the successful candidate will investigate the dynamics of the large-scale currents (Birkeland currents) that couple the outer magnetosphere to the upper atmosphere (ionosphere). The role of the currents during the magnetospheric loading/unloading cycle (magnetic substorms) and their impact on the formation of small-scale structures that cause signal disturbances in modern navigation systems like GPS and Galileo are of particular interest. The investigation will primarily be based on the analysis of measurements from the Active Magnetosphere and Planetary Electrodynamics Response Experiment (AMPERE), complemented by data from optical facilities located on Svalbard, and time series from the first Norwegian scientific satellite, NORSAT-1.

The successful applicant will have the opportunity to take a leading role throughout the entire project, which includes data analysis, interpretation of results, and publication of the findings. It is also expected that the successful candidate works in close collaboration with the other members of the 4DSpace initiative.

Requirements/qualifications:

The Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences has a strategic ambition of being a leading research faculty. Candidates for these fellowships will be selected in accordance with this, and expected to be in the upper segment of their class with respect to academic credentials.

Applicants must hold a Master’s degree or equivalent in physics, and preferably have pursued a Master project in space or plasma physics. Candidates without a Master’s degree have until 30 June 2017 to complete the final exam.

Since the project is heavily reliant on data analysis, the ideal candidate has a proven track record in the analysis of large data sets; the specific programming language used is of minor interest.

Experience with the analysis of geophysical data from instruments like AMPERE, SuperDARN, all-sky imagers, and GPS scintillation receivers is considered a plus.

The purpose of the fellowship is research training leading to the successful completion of a PhD degree.

The fellowship requires admission to the PhD program at the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences. The application to the PhD program must be submitted to the department no later than two months after taking up the position. For more information see:

http://www.uio.no/english/research/phd/

http://www.mn.uio.no/english/research/phd/

A good command of English is required, see here.

Salary:

Position code 1017, salary NOK 432 700 – 489 300 per year depending on qualifications and seniority.

The application must include:

    Application letter including a description of scientific interests and the motivation for applying for the position (max. 2 pages)
    CV (summarizing education, work experience and academic work, including any scientific publications and other qualifying activity)
    Copies of educational certificates, transcript of records, and letters of recommendation
    Names and contact details of 2-3 references (name, relation to candidate, e-mail and telephone number)
    Documentation of English proficiency

Foreign applicants are advised to attach an explanation of their University’s grading system. Please remember that all documents should be in English or a Scandinavian language. Applications with documents missing will not be considered further.

In accordance with the University of Oslo’s equal opportunities policy, we invite applications from all interested individuals regardless of gender or ethnicity. The University of Oslo has a goal of recruiting more women in academic positions. Women are encouraged to apply.

UiO has an agreement for all employees, aiming to secure rights to research results a.o.

Contact information:

Associate Prof. Lasse Clausen, e-mail: lasse.clausen at fys.uio.no, tel. +47 228 55661.

For questions regarding the recruitment system Jobbnorge, please contact HR Officer Therese Ringvold, e-mail: therese.ringvold at mn.uio.no, phone: +47 22 85 16 06.

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