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Xin Cheng

Xin Cheng appears in the imported research catalog. Authorship, coauthor and topic links are available while profile ownership is still unclaimed.

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astro-ph.SReess.SPphysics.space-phArtificial IntelligenceComputation and LanguageComputer VisionMachine Learningphysics.opticsphysics.plasm-ph

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Published work

27 published item(s)

preprint2026arXiv

Conditional Memory via Scalable Lookup: A New Axis of Sparsity for Large Language Models

While Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) scales capacity via conditional computation, Transformers lack a native primitive for knowledge lookup, forcing them to inefficiently simulate retrieval through computation. To address this, we introduce conditional memory as a complementary sparsity axis, instantiated via Engram, a module that modernizes classic $N$-gram embedding for O(1) lookup. By formulating the Sparsity Allocation problem, we uncover a U-shaped scaling law that optimizes the trade-off between neural computation (MoE) and static memory (Engram). Guided by this law, we scale Engram to 27B parameters, achieving superior performance over a strictly iso-parameter and iso-FLOPs MoE baseline. Most notably, while the memory module is expected to aid knowledge retrieval (e.g., MMLU +3.4; CMMLU +4.0), we observe even larger gains in general reasoning (e.g., BBH +5.0; ARC-Challenge +3.7) and code/math domains~(HumanEval +3.0; MATH +2.4). Mechanistic analyses reveal that Engram relieves the backbone's early layers from static reconstruction, effectively deepening the network for complex reasoning. Furthermore, by delegating local dependencies to lookups, it frees up attention capacity for global context, substantially boosting long-context retrieval (e.g., Multi-Query NIAH: 84.2 to 97.0). Finally, Engram establishes infrastructure-aware efficiency: its deterministic addressing enables runtime prefetching from host memory, incurring negligible overhead. We envision conditional memory as an indispensable modeling primitive for next-generation sparse models.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2026arXiv

DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning

General reasoning represents a long-standing and formidable challenge in artificial intelligence. Recent breakthroughs, exemplified by large language models (LLMs) and chain-of-thought prompting, have achieved considerable success on foundational reasoning tasks. However, this success is heavily contingent upon extensive human-annotated demonstrations, and models' capabilities are still insufficient for more complex problems. Here we show that the reasoning abilities of LLMs can be incentivized through pure reinforcement learning (RL), obviating the need for human-labeled reasoning trajectories. The proposed RL framework facilitates the emergent development of advanced reasoning patterns, such as self-reflection, verification, and dynamic strategy adaptation. Consequently, the trained model achieves superior performance on verifiable tasks such as mathematics, coding competitions, and STEM fields, surpassing its counterparts trained via conventional supervised learning on human demonstrations. Moreover, the emergent reasoning patterns exhibited by these large-scale models can be systematically harnessed to guide and enhance the reasoning capabilities of smaller models.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2026arXiv

SyncDPO: Enhancing Temporal Synchronization in Video-Audio Joint Generation via Preference Learning

Recent advancements in video-audio joint generation have achieved remarkable success in semantic correspondence. However, achieving precise temporal synchronization, which requires fine-grained alignment between audio events and their visual triggers, remains a challenging problem. The post-training method for joint generation is largely dominated by Supervised Fine-Tuning, but the commonly used Mean Squared Error loss provides insufficient penalties for subtle temporal misalignments. Direct Preference Optimization offers an alternative by introducing explicit misaligned counterparts to better improve temporal sensitivity. In this paper we propose a post-training framework SyncDPO, leveraging DPO to improve the temporal sensitivity of V-A joint generation. Conventional DPO pipelines typically depend on costly sampling-and-ranking procedures to construct preference pairs, resulting in substantial computational cost. To improve efficiency, we introduce a suite of on-the-fly rule-based negative construction strategies that distort temporal structures without incurring additional annotation or sampling. We demonstrate that the temporal alignment capability can be effectively reinforced by providing explicit negative supervision through temporally distorted V-A pairs. Accordingly, we implement a curriculum learning strategy that progressively increases the difficulty of negative samples, transitioning from coarse misalignment to subtle inconsistencies. Extensive objective and subjective experiments across four diverse benchmarks, ranging from ambient sound videos to human speech videos, demonstrate that SyncDPO significantly outperforms other methods in improving model's temporal alignment capability. It also demonstrates superior generalization on out-of-distribution benchmark by capturing intrinsic motion-sound dynamics. Demo and code is available in https://syncdpo.github.io/syncdpo/.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2022arXiv

Can we detect coronal mass ejections through asymmetries of Sun-as-a-star extreme-ultraviolet spectral line profiles?

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are the largest-scale eruptive phenomena in the solar system. Associated with enormous plasma ejections and energy release, CMEs have an important impact on the solar-terrestrial environment. Accurate predictions of the arrival times of CMEs at the Earth depend on the precise measurements on their three-dimensional velocities, which can be achieved using simultaneous line-of-sight (LOS) and plane-of-sky (POS) observations. Besides the POS information from routine coronagraph and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) imaging observations, spectroscopic observations could unveil the physical properties of CMEs including their LOS velocities. We propose that spectral line asymmetries measured by Sun-as-a-star spectrographs can be used for routine detections of CMEs and estimations of their LOS velocities during their early propagation phases. Such observations can also provide important clues for the detection of CMEs on other solar-like stars. However, few studies have concentrated on whether we can detect CME signals and accurately diagnose CME properties through Sun-as-a-star spectral observations. In this work, we constructed a geometric CME model and derived the analytical expressions for full-disk integrated EUV line profiles during CMEs. For different CME properties and instrumental configurations, full disk-integrated line profiles were synthesized. We further evaluated the detectability and diagnostic potential of CMEs from the synthetic line profiles. Our investigations provide important constraints on the future design of Sun-as-a-star spectrographs for CME detections through EUV line asymmetries.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2022arXiv

Federated Learning-Based Localization with Heterogeneous Fingerprint Database

Fingerprint-based localization plays an important role in indoor location-based services, where the position information is usually collected in distributed clients and gathered in a centralized server. However, the overloaded transmission as well as the potential risk of divulging private information burdens the application.Owning the ability to address these challenges, federated learning (FL)-based fingerprinting localization comes into people's sights, which aims to train a global model while keeping raw data locally. However, in distributed machine learning (ML) scenarios, the unavoidable database heterogeneity usually degrades the performance of existing FL-based localization algorithm (FedLoc). In this paper, we first characterize the database heterogeneity with a computable metric, i.e., the area of convex hull, and verify it by experimental results. Then, a novel heterogeneous FL-based localization algorithm with the area of convex hull-based aggregation (FedLoc-AC) is proposed. Extensive experimental results, including real-word cases are conducted. We can conclude that the proposed FedLoc-AC can achieve an obvious prediction gain compared to FedLoc in heterogeneous scenarios and has almost the same prediction error with it in homogeneous scenarios. Moreover, the extension of FedLoc-AC in multi-floor cases is proposed and verified.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2022arXiv

Influence of magnetic reconnection on the eruptive catastrophes of coronal magnetic flux ropes

Large-scale solar eruptive activities have a close relationship with coronal magnetic flux ropes. Previous numerical studies have found that the equilibrium of a coronal flux rope system could be disrupted if the axial magnetic flux of the rope exceeds a critical value, so that the catastrophe occurs, initiating the flux rope to erupt. Further studies discovered that the catastrophe does not necessarily exist: the flux rope system with certain photospheric flux distributions could be non-catastrophic. It is noteworthy that most previous numerical studies are under the ideal magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) condition, so that it is still elusive whether there is the catastrophe associated with the critical axial flux if magnetic reconnection is included in the flux rope system. In this paper, we carried out numerical simulations to investigate the evolutions of coronal magnetic rope systems under the ideal MHD and the resistive condition. Under the ideal MHD condition, our simulation results demonstrate that the flux rope systems with either too compact or too weak photospheric magnetic source regions are non-catastrophic versus varying axial flux of the rope, and thus no eruption could be initiated; if there is magnetic reconnection in the rope system, however, those flux rope systems could change to be capable of erupting via the catastrophe associated with increasing axial flux. Therefore, magnetic reconnection could significantly influence the catastrophic behaviors of flux rope system. It should be both the magnetic topology and the local physical parameters related to magnetic reconnection that determine whether the increasing axial flux is able to cause flux rope eruptions.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2022arXiv

Optimal Measurement of Drone Swarm in RSS-based Passive Localization with Region Constraints

Passive geolocation by multiple unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) covers a wide range of military and civilian applications including rescue, wild life tracking and electronic warfare. The sensor-target geometry is known to significantly affect the localization precision. The existing sensor placement strategies mainly work on the cases without any constraints on the sensors locations. However, UAVs cannot fly/hover simply in arbitrary region due to realistic constraints, such as the geographical limitations, the security issues, and the max flying speed. In this paper, optimal geometrical configurations of UAVs in received signal strength (RSS)-based localization under region constraints are investigated. Employing the D-optimal criteria, i.e., minimizing the determinate of Fisher information matrix (FIM), such optimal problem is formulated. Based on the rigorous algebra and geometrical derivations, optimal and also closed form configurations of UAVs under different flying states are proposed. Finally, the effectiveness and practicality of the proposed configurations are demonstrated by simulation examples.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2022arXiv

Providing Location Information at Edge Networks: A Federated Learning-Based Approach

Recently, the development of mobile edge computing has enabled exhilarating edge artificial intelligence (AI) with fast response and low communication cost. The location information of edge devices is essential to support the edge AI in many scenarios, like smart home, intelligent transportation systems and integrated health care. Taking advantages of deep learning intelligence, the centralized machine learning (ML)-based positioning technique has received heated attention from both academia and industry. However, some potential issues, such as location information leakage and huge data traffic, limit its application. Fortunately, a newly emerging privacy-preserving distributed ML mechanism, named federated learning (FL), is expected to alleviate these concerns. In this article, we illustrate a framework of FL-based localization system as well as the involved entities at edge networks. Moreover, the advantages of such system are elaborated. On practical implementation of it, we investigate the field-specific issues associated with system-level solutions, which are further demonstrated over a real-word database. Moreover, future challenging open problems in this field are outlined.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2022arXiv

Rapid Phase Ambiguity Elimination Methods for DOA Estimator via Hybrid Massive MIMO Receive Array

For a sub-connected hybrid multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) receiver with $K$ subarrays and $N$ antennas, there exists a challenging problem of how to rapidly remove phase ambiguity in only single time-slot. First, a DOA estimator of maximizing received power (Max-RP) is proposed to find the maximum value of $K$-subarray output powers, where each subarray is in charge of one sector, and the center angle of the sector corresponding to the maximum output is the estimated true DOA. To make an enhancement on precision, Max-RP plus quadratic interpolation (Max-RP-QI) method is designed. In the proposed Max-RP-QI, a quadratic interpolation scheme is adopted to interpolate the three DOA values corresponding to the largest three receive powers of Max-RP. Finally, to achieve the CRLB, a Root-MUSIC plus Max-RP-QI scheme is developed. Simulation results show that the proposed three methods eliminate the phase ambiguity during one time-slot and also show low-computational-complexities. In particular, the proposed Root-MUSIC plus Max-RP-QI scheme can reach the CRLB, and the proposed Max-RP and Max-RP-QI are still some performance losses $2dB\thicksim4dB$ compared to the CRLB.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2022arXiv

Two Low-complexity DOA Estimators for Massive/Ultra-massive MIMO Receive Array

Eigen-decomposition-based direction finding methods of using large-scale/ultra-large-scale fully-digital receive antenna arrays lead to a high or ultra-high complexity. To address the complexity dilemma, in this paper, three low-complexity estimators are proposed: partitioned subarray auto-correlation combining (PSAC), partitioned subarray cross-correlation combining (PSCC) and power iteration max correlation successive convex approximation (PI-Max-CSCA). Compared with the conventional no-partitioned direction finding method like root multiple signal classification (Root-MUSIC), in the PSAC method, the total set of antennas are equally partitioned into subsets of antennas, called subarrays, each subarray performs independent DOA estimation, and all DOA estimates are coherently combined to give the final estimation. For a better performance, the cross-correlation among sub-arrays is further exploited in the PSCC method to achieve the near-Cramer-Rao lower bound (CRLB) performance with the help of auto-correlation. To further reduce the complexity, in the PI-Max-CSCA method, using a fraction of all subarrays to make an initial coarse direction measurement (ICDM), the power iterative method is adopted to compute the more precise steering vector (SV) by exploiting the total array, and a more accurate DOA value is found using ICDM and SV through the maximum correlation method solved by successive convex approximation. Simulation results show that as the number of antennas goes to large-scale, the proposed three methods can achieve a dramatic complexity reduction over conventional Root-MUISC. Particularly, the PSCC and PI-Max-CSCA can reach the CRLB while the PSAC shows a substantial performance loss.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2021arXiv

Annihilation of Magnetic Islands at the Top of Solar Flare Loops

The dynamics of magnetic reconnection in the solar current sheet (CS) is studied by high-resolution 2.5-dimensional MHD simulation. With the commence of magnetic reconnection, a number of magnetic islands are formed intermittently and move quickly upward and downward along the CS. When colliding with the semi-closed flux of flare loops, the downflow islands cause a second reconnection with a rate even comparable with that in the main CS. Though the time-integrated magnetic energy release is still dominated by the reconnection in main CS, the second reconnection can release substantial magnetic energy, annihilating the main islands and generating secondary islands with various scales at the flare loop top. The distribution function of the flux of the second islands is found to follow a power-law varying from $f\left(ψ\right)\simψ^{-1}$ (small scale) to $ψ^{-2}$ (large scale), which seems to be independent with background plasma $β$ and if including thermal conduction. However, the spatial scale and the strength of the termination shocks driven by main reconnection outflows or islands decrease if $β$ increases or thermal conduction is included. We suggest that the annihilation of magnetic islands at the flare loop top, which is not included in the standard flare model, plays a non-negligible role in releasing magnetic energy to heat flare plasma and accelerate particles.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2021arXiv

Comparison of Helium Abundance between ICMEs and Solar Wind near 1 AU

The Helium abundance, defined as $A_{He}=n_{He}/n_{H}\times 100$, is $\sim$8.5 in the photosphere and seldom exceeds 5 in fast solar wind. Previous statistics have demonstrated that $A_{He}$ in slow solar wind correlates tightly with sunspot number. However, less attention is paid to the solar cycle dependence of $A_{He}$ within interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) and comparing the $A_{He}$ characteristics of ICMEs and solar wind. In this paper we conduct a statistical comparison of Helium abundance between ICMEs and solar wind near 1 AU with observations of \textit{Advanced Composition Explorer} from 1998 to 2019, and find that the ICME $A_{He}$ also exhibits the obvious solar cycle dependence. Meanwhile, we find that the $A_{He}$ is obviously higher within ICMEs compared to solar wind, and the means within 37\% and 12\% of ICMEs exceed 5 and 8.5, respectively. It is interesting to answer where and how the high Helium abundance originates. Our statistics demonstrate that 21\% (3\%) of ICME (slow wind) $A_{He}$ data points exceed 8.5 around solar maximum, which decreases dramatically near minimum, while no such high $A_{He}$ values appear in the fast wind throughout the whole solar cycle. This indicates that the high $A_{He}$ (e.g., $>$8.5) emanates from active regions as more ICMEs and slow wind originates from active regions around maximum, and supports that both active regions and quiet-Sun regions are the sources of slow wind. We suggest that the high $A_{He}$ from active regions could be explained by means of the magnetic loop confinement model and/or photoionization effect.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2021arXiv

Spectral compression by phase doubling in second harmonic generation

In second harmonic generation, the phase of the optical field is doubled which has important implication. Here the phase doubling effect is utilized to solve a long-standing challenge in power scaling of single frequency laser. When a (-π/2, π/2) binary phase modulation is applied to a single frequency seed laser to broaden the spectrum and suppress the stimulated Brillouin scattering in high power fiber amplifier, the second harmonic of the phase-modulated laser will return to single frequency, because the (-π/2, π/2) modulation is doubled to (-π, π) for the second harmonic. A compression rate as high as 95% is demonstrated in the experiment limited by the electronic bandwidth of the setup, which can be improved with optimized devices.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2020arXiv

Real-time Human Activity Recognition Using Conditionally Parametrized Convolutions on Mobile and Wearable Devices

Recently, deep learning has represented an important research trend in human activity recognition (HAR). In particular, deep convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have achieved state-of-the-art performance on various HAR datasets. For deep learning, improvements in performance have to heavily rely on increasing model size or capacity to scale to larger and larger datasets, which inevitably leads to the increase of operations. A high number of operations in deep leaning increases computational cost and is not suitable for real-time HAR using mobile and wearable sensors. Though shallow learning techniques often are lightweight, they could not achieve good performance. Therefore, deep learning methods that can balance the trade-off between accuracy and computation cost is highly needed, which to our knowledge has seldom been researched. In this paper, we for the first time propose a computation efficient CNN using conditionally parametrized convolution for real-time HAR on mobile and wearable devices. We evaluate the proposed method on four public benchmark HAR datasets consisting of WISDM dataset, PAMAP2 dataset, UNIMIB-SHAR dataset, and OPPORTUNITY dataset, achieving state-of-the-art accuracy without compromising computation cost. Various ablation experiments are performed to show how such a network with large capacity is clearly preferable to baseline while requiring a similar amount of operations. The method can be used as a drop-in replacement for the existing deep HAR architectures and easily deployed onto mobile and wearable devices for real-time HAR applications.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2016arXiv

A Statistical Study of the Average Iron Charge Distributions inside Magnetic Clouds for Solar Cycle 23

Magnetic clouds (MCs) are the interplanetary counterpart of coronal magnetic flux ropes. They can provide valuable information to reveal the flux rope characteristics at their eruption stage in the corona, which are unable to be explored in situ at present. In this paper, we make a comprehensive survey of the average iron charge state (<Q>Fe) distributions inside 96 MCs for solar cycle 23 using ACE (Advanced Composition Explorer) data. As the <Q>Fe in the solar wind are typically around 9+ to 11+, the Fe charge state is defined as high when the <Q>Fe is larger than 12+, which implies the existence of a considerable amount of Fe ions with high charge states (e.g., \geq 16+). The statistical results show that the <Q>Fe distributions of 92 (~ 96%) MCs can be classified into four groups with different characteristics. In group A (11 MCs), the <Q>Fe shows a bimodal distribution with both peaks higher than 12+. Group B (4 MCs) presents a unimodal distribution of <Q>Fe with its peak higher than 12+. In groups C (29 MCs) and D (48 MCs), the <Q>Fe remains higher and lower than 12+ throughout ACE passage through the MC, respectively. Possible explanations to these distributions are discussed.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2016arXiv

Bidirectional outflows as evidence of magnetic reconnection leading to a solar microflare

Magnetic reconnection is a rapid energy release process that is believed to be responsible for flares on the Sun and stars. Nevertheless, such flare-related reconnection is mostly detected to occur in the corona, while there have been few studies concerning the reconnection in the chromosphere or photosphere. Here we present both spectroscopic and imaging observations of magnetic reconnection in the chromosphere leading to a microflare. During the flare peak time, chromospheric line profiles show significant blueshifted/redshifted components on the two sides of the flaring site, corresponding to upflows and downflows with velocities of $\pm$(70--80) km s$^{-1}$, comparable with the local Alfvén speed as expected by the reconnection in the chromosphere. The three-dimensional nonlinear force-free field configuration further discloses twisted field lines (a flux rope) at a low altitude, cospatial with the dark threads in He I 10830 Å images. The instability of the flux rope may initiate the flare-related reconnection. These observations provide clear evidence of magnetic reconnection in the chromosphere and show the similar mechanisms of a microflare to those of major flares.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2016arXiv

The Formation and Early Evolution of a Coronal Mass Ejection and its Associated Shock Wave on 2014 January 8

In this paper, we study the formation and early evolution of a limb coronal mass ejection (CME) and its associated shock wave that occurred on 2014 January 8. The extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images provided by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board \textit{Solar Dynamics Observatory} disclose that the CME first appears as a bubble-like structure. Subsequently, its expansion forms the CME and causes a quasi-circular EUV wave. Interestingly, both the CME and the wave front are clearly visible at all of the AIA EUV passbands. Through a detailed kinematical analysis, it is found that the expansion of the CME undergoes two phases: a first phase with a strong but transient lateral over-expansion followed by a second phase with a self-similar expansion. The temporal evolution of the expansion velocity coincides very well with the variation of the 25--50 keV hard X-ray flux of the associated flare, which indicates that magnetic reconnection most likely plays an important role in driving the expansion. Moreover, we find that, when the velocity of the CME reaches $\sim$600 km s$^{-1}$, the EUV wave starts to evolve into a shock wave, which is evidenced by the appearance of a type II radio burst. The shock's formation height is estimated to be $\sim$0.2$R_{sun}$, which is much lower than the height derived previously. Finally, we also study the thermal properties of the CME and the EUV wave. We find that the plasma in the CME leading front and the wave front has a temperature of $\sim$2 MK, while that in the CME core region and the flare region has a much higher temperature of $\ge$8 MK.

0 citations0 reviewsNo code linkedOpen access
preprint2015arXiv

Acceleration phases of a solar filament during its eruption

Filament eruptions often lead to coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which can affect critical technological systems in space and on the ground when they interact with the geo-magnetosphere in high speeds. Therefore, it is an important issue to investigate the acceleration mechanisms of CMEs in solar/space physics. Based on observations and simulations, the resistive magnetic reconnection and the ideal instability of magnetic flux rope have been proposed to accelerate CMEs. However, it remains elusive whether both of them play a comparable role during a particular eruption. It has been extremely difficult to separate their contributions as they often work in a close time sequence during one fast acceleration phase. Here we report an intriguing filament eruption event, which shows two apparently separated fast acceleration phases and provides us an excellent opportunity to address the issue. Through analyzing the correlations between velocity (acceleration) and soft (hard) X-ray profiles, we suggest that the instability and magnetic reconnection make a major contribution during the first and second fast acceleration phases, respectively. Further, we find that both processes have a comparable contribution to accelerate the filament in this event.

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preprint2015arXiv

Evidence of the Solar EUV hot channel as a magnetic flux rope from remote-sensing and in-situ observations

Hot channels (HCs), high temperature erupting structures in the lower corona of the Sun, have been proposed as a proxy of magnetic flux ropes (MFRs) since their initial discovery. However, it is difficult to make definitive proof given the fact that there is no direct measurement of magnetic field in the corona. An alternative way is to use the magnetic field measurement in the solar wind from in-situ instruments. On 2012 July 12, an HC was observed prior to and during a coronal mass ejection (CME) by the AIA high-temperature images. The HC is invisible in the EUVI low-temperature images, which only show the cooler leading front (LF). However, both the LF and an ejecta can be observed in the coronagraphic images. These are consistent with the high temperature and high density of the HC and support that the ejecta is the erupted HC. In the meanwhile, the associated CME shock was identified ahead of the ejecta and the sheath through the COR2 images, and the corresponding ICME was detected by \textit{ACE}, showing the shock, sheath and magnetic cloud (MC) sequentially, which agrees with the coronagraphic observations. Further, the MC contained a low-ionization-state center and a high-ionization-state shell, consistent with the pre-existing HC observation and its growth through magnetic reconnection. All of these observations support that the MC detected near the Earth is the counterpart of the erupted HC in the corona for this event. Therefore, our study provides strong observational evidence of the HC as an MFR.

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preprint2015arXiv

Extremely Large EUV Late Phase of Solar Flares

The second peak in the Fe XVI 33.5 nm line irradiance observed during solar flares by Extreme ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) is known as Extreme UltraViolet (EUV) late phase. Our previous paper (Liu et al. 2013) found that the main emissions in the late phase are originated from large-scale loop arcades that are closely connected to but different from the post flare loops (PFLs), and we also proposed that a long cooling process without additional heating could explain the late phase. In this paper, we define the extremely large late phase because it not only has a bigger peak in the warm 33.5 irradiance profile, but also releases more EUV radiative energy than the main phase. Through detailedly inspecting the EUV images from three point-of-view, it is found that, besides the later phase loop arcades, the more contribution of the extremely large late phase is from a hot structure that fails to erupt. This hot structure is identified as a flux rope, which is quickly energized by the flare reconnection and later on continuously produces the thermal energy during the gradual phase. Together with the late-phase loop arcades, the fail to erupt flux rope with the additional heating create the extremely large EUV late phase.

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preprint2015arXiv

First Taste of Hot Channel in Interplanetary Space

Hot channel (HC) is a high temperature ($\sim$10 MK) structure in the inner corona revealed first by Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board \textit{Solar Dynamics Observatory}. Eruption of HC is often associated with flare and coronal mass ejection. Previous studies suggest that HC is a good proxy of magnetic flux rope (MFR) in the inner corona, in addition to another well-known MFR candidate, the prominence-cavity structure that is with a normal coronal temperature ($\sim$1-2 MK). In this paper, we report a high temperature structure (HTS, $\sim$1.5 MK) contained in an interplanetary coronal mass ejection induced by an HC eruption. According to the observations of bidirectional electrons, high temperature and density, strong magnetic field, and its association with the shock, sheath, and plasma pile-up region, we suggest that the HTS is the interplanetary counterpart of the HC. The scale of the measured HTS is around 14 R$_\odot$, and it maintained a much higher temperature than the background solar wind even at 1 AU. It is significantly different from the typical magnetic clouds (MCs), which usually have a much lower temperature. Our study suggests that the existence of a corotating interaction region ahead of the HC formed a magnetic container to inhibit the HC expansion and cooling down to a low temperature.

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preprint2015arXiv

On the origin of the Extreme-Ultraviolet late phase of solar flares

Solar flares typically have an impulsive phase that followed by a gradual phase as best seen in soft X-ray emissions. A recent discovery based on the EUV Variability Experiment (EVE) observations onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) reveals that some flares exhibit a second large peak separated from the first main phase peak by tens of minutes to hours, which is coined as the flare's EUV late phase. In this paper, we address the origin of the EUV late phase by analyzing in detail two late phase flares, an M2.9 flare on 2010 October 16 and an M1.4 flare on 2011 February 18, using multi-passband imaging observations from the Atmospheric Imaing Assembly (AIA) onboard SDO. We find that: (1) the late phase emission originates from a different magnetic loop system, which is much larger and higher than the main phase loop system. (2) The two loop systems have different thermal evolution. While the late phase loop arcade reaches its peak brightness progressively at a later time spanning for more than one hour from high to low temperatures, the main phase loop arcade reaches its peak brightness at almost the same time (within several minutes) in all temperatures. (3) Nevertheless, the two loop systems seem to be connected magnetically, forming an asymmetric magnetic quadruple configuration. (4) Further, the footpoint brightenings in UV wavelengths show a systematic delay of about one minute from the main flare region to the remote footpoint of the late phase arcade system. We argue that the EUV late phase is the result of a long-lasting cooling process in the larger magnetic arcade system.

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preprint2015arXiv

Predicting the Arrival Time of Coronal Mass Ejections with the Graduated Cylindrical Shell and Drag Force Model

Accurately predicting the arrival of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) at the Earth based on remote images is of critical significance in the study of space weather. In this paper, we make a statistical study of 21 Earth directed CMEs, exploring in particular the relationship between CME initial speeds and transit times. The initial speed of a CME is obtained by fitting the CME with the Graduated Cylindrical Shell model and is thus free of projection effects. We then use the drag force model to fit results of the transit time versus the initial speed. By adopting different drag regimes, i.e., the viscous, aerodynamics, and hybrid regimes, we get similar results, with the least mean estimation error of the hybrid model of 12.9 hours. CMEs with a propagation angle (the angle between the propagation direction and the Sun-Earth line) larger than its half angular width arrive at the Earth with an angular deviation caused by factors other than the radial solar wind drag. The drag force model cannot be well applied to such events. If we exclude these events in the sample, the prediction accuracy can be improved, i.e., the estimation error reduces to 6.8 hours. This work suggests that it is viable to predict the arrival time of CMEs at the Earth based on the initial parameters with a fairly good accuracy. Thus, it provides a method of space weather forecast of 1--5 days following the occurrence of CMEs.

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preprint2014arXiv

Direct observations of magnetic flux rope formation during a solar coronal mass ejection

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are the most spectacular eruptive phenomena in the solar atmosphere. It is generally accepted that CMEs are results of eruptions of magnetic flux ropes (MFRs). However, a heated debate is on whether MFRs pre-exist before the eruptions or they are formed during the eruptions. Several coronal signatures, \textit{e.g.}, filaments, coronal cavities, sigmoid structures and hot channels (or hot blobs), are proposed as MFRs and observed before the eruption, which support the pre-existing MFR scenario. There is almost no reported observation about MFR formation during the eruption. In this letter, we present an intriguing observation of a solar eruptive event occurred on 2013 November 21 with the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on board the \textit{Solar Dynamic Observatory}, which shows a detailed formation process of the MFR during the eruption. The process started with the expansion of a low-lying coronal arcade, possibly caused by the flare magnetic reconnection underneath. The newly-formed ascending loops from below further pushed the arcade upward, stretching the surrounding magnetic field. The arcade and stretched magnetic field lines then curved-in just below the arcade vertex, forming an X-point. The field lines near the X-point continued to approach each other and a second magnetic reconnection was induced. It is this high-lying magnetic reconnection that led to the formation and eruption of a hot blob ($\sim$ 10 MK), presumably a MFR, producing a CME. We suggest that two spatially-separated magnetic reconnections occurred in this event, responsible for producing the flare and the hot blob (CME), respectively.

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preprint2014arXiv

Direct Observations of Tether-cutting Reconnection During a Major Solar Event From 2014 February 24 to 25

Using the multi-wavelength data from Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on board the Solar Dynamic Observatory, we investigated two successive solar flares, a C5.1 confined flare and an X4.9 ejective flare with a halo coronal mass ejection,in NOAA AR 11990 from 2014 Feb 24 to 25. Before the confined are onset, EUV brightening beneath the filament was detected. As the are began, a twisted helical flux rope (FR) wrapping around the filament moved upward and then stopped, and in the meantime an obvious X-ray source below it was observed. Prior to the ejective X4.9 flare, some pre-existing loop structures in the active region interacted with each other, which produced a brightening region beneath the filament. Meanwhile, a small flaring loop appeared below the interaction region and some new helical lines connecting the far ends of the loop structures was gradually formed and continually added into the former twisted FR. Then, due to the resulting imbalance between the magnetic pressure and tension, the new FR together with the filament erupted outward. Our observations coincide well with tether-cutting model, suggesting that the two flares probably have the same triggering mechanism, i.e., tether-cutting reconnection. To our knowledge, this is the first direct observation of tether-cutting reconnection occurring between the pre-existing loops in active region. In the ejective flare case, the erupting filament exhibited an omega-like kinked structure and underwent an exponential rise after a slow-rise phase, indicating the kink instability might be also responsible for the eruption initiation.

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preprint2014arXiv

Temperature evolution of magnetic flux rope in a failed solar eruption

In this presentation, we report for the first time the detailed temperature evolution process of the magnetic flux rope in a failed solar eruption. Occurred on January 05, 2013, the flux rope was impulsively accelerated to a speed of ~ 400 km/s in the first minute, then decelerated and came to a complete stop in two minutes. The failed eruption resulted in a large-size high-lying (~ 100 Mm above the surface) high-temperature "fire ball" sitting in the corona for more than two hours. The time evolution of the thermal structure of the flux rope was revealed through the differential emission measure analysis technique, which produced temperature maps using observations of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on board Solar Dynamic Observatory. The average temperature of the flux rope steadily increased from ~ 5 MK to ~ 10 MK during the first nine minutes of the evolution, which was much longer than the rise time (about three minutes) of the associated soft X-ray flare. We suggest that the flux rope be heated by the energy release of the continuing magnetic reconnection, different from the heating of the low-lying flare loops, which is mainly produced by the chromospheric plasma evaporation. The loop arcade overlying the flux rope was pushed up by ~ 10 Mm during the attempted eruption. The pattern of the velocity variation of the loop arcade strongly suggests that the failure of the eruption be caused by the strapping effect of the overlying loop arcade.

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preprint2012arXiv

Secondary Waves, and/or the "Reflection" From and "Transmission" Through a Coronal Hole of an EUV Wave Associated With the 2011 February 15 X2.2 Flare Observed With SDO/AIA and STEREO/EUVI

For the first time, the kinematic evolution of a coronal wave over the entire solar surface is studied. Full Sun maps can be made by combining images from the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory satellites, Ahead and Behind, and the Solar Dynamics Observatory, thanks to the wide angular separation between them. We study the propagation of a coronal wave, also known as "EIT" wave, and its interaction with a coronal hole resulting in secondary waves and/or reflection and transmission. We explore the possibility of the wave obeying the law of reflection of waves. In a detailed example we find that a loop arcade at the coronal hole boundary cascades and oscillates as a result of the EUV wave passage and triggers a wave directed eastwards that appears to have reflected. We find that the speed of this wave decelerates to an asymptotic value, which is less than half of the primary EUV wave speed. Thanks to the full Sun coverage we are able to determine that part of the primary wave is transmitted through the coronal hole. This is the first observation of its kind. The kinematic measurements of the reflected and transmitted wave tracks are consistent with a fast-mode MHD wave interpretation. Eventually, all wave tracks decelerate and disappear at a distance. A possible scenario of the whole process is that the wave is initially driven by the expanding coronal mass ejection and subsequently decouples from the driver and then propagates at the local fast-mode speed.

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