More work

Brief overview with the 'new era of Jovian auroral understanding' ie Steve's ideas on Makenzie's profiles. Yep, there are new ones, lots of them, with interesting things to look at.

One run finished (the last of the set that were running, meaning all I have to do is wait until the new regime is in place and set off the seven old ones again). Saturn5000 was the 12eV SD+1 run. It has been analysed.

Of course, first there is CTIP...

I have just had a look at putting the small increments thing in and it seems ok. Like everything else...

Sigh, "bus errror", should'a known it...

hmmm, will try a few runs on other computers using proton1...

Fails on rimmer

can't compile on C3

Going on keter... on the slow processors...

Trying out 31eV runs whilst waiting. It doesn't dip into the small increments level too deeply at this point, so may or may not avoid bus errors. On the other hand, ramping up the number of electrons fired does invite more errors to show their hand...

...bus error at 100k dammit!

Hmmm, difficult one. The lower energy stuff could probably quite happilly live without the small increments stuff, but the high energy stuff really needs it, otherwise there's the risk of crossing into an unrealistic pressure level. I'll run through the other energies and see if any of them can complete...

...one minor comfort, doing the 46eV lot, is that I do get ionisation in all pressure levels, as hoped.

...bus error at 100k

66eV
...100k again

96eV
...1M this time. Dammit... so close...

140eV
100k

206eV
100k

300eV
1M

440eV
1M

650eV
1M+ (hurray!)

950eV
1M

Don't yet have time to try out:
1380, 2030, 2980, 4400, 6400, 9400, 14000, 20800, 30500

I have actually remembered that since I have to divide all answers by a thousand to account for path length, 100k is more than enough anyway... and the answers (suggesting final peak rates from just shy of 1000 to just shy of 10,000 pcm3) is what is expected.

Must/may also do runs with pitch angle distributions, plus magnetic effects... after all...

...more and more and more...

Marking, 'bout halfway through

One run ended and was analysed. Saturn500 doing the 12eV SD-2 run. This leaves one run going on Keter, and six ready to make their reappearance once the queueing system has gone through...

Quick note

One run finished

Saturn100 finished the 12eV SD-C run. It was analysed etc.

Bits and bobs

Group meeting occured on the topics of the Move and the Rolling Grant, plus a little bit about computing.
The Move: The meeting took place in the new PhD office. People have been assigned to the office and a further meeting was to happen afterwards to decide desk allocation. This has happened, room has been rearranged, and asides from grabbing a couple of sofas and a coffee table, all is ready.
The Rolling Grant: All I heard was "moan, moan, moan" which translates as "they've changed the way the grants are assessed". Should be fun...
Computing: After yesterday's events, APL has threatened to withdraw funding from UCL's supercomputers by using the Miracle grant. We'll see how negotiations with getting serial jobs back on the fast processors go. Steve is all for trying to renegotiate everything back. Alan wants to pull us out...

Other things.

Howarth handed me more marking and left a message with my officemates about him mailing me the model answers later. This was not conveyed until Howarth returned and made them convey it...

Anasuya got her marking back in the group meeting. I wasn't missing a script.

One run finished, or rather hit the time limit... The only one that was ever likely to. It has been reset off on Rimmer, where it joins a long CMAT2 run already going, which means both of Rimmer's processors are now in use. Where's Alun...

Antionio Hales is our newest Dr

Grodent stuff moving along slowly.

...more and more and more...

Another run ended

Saturn1000 was the 12eV GS1m run. It has been analysed.

Demonstrating also happened, 2 hours of waves optics and accoustics in the maths problem class. That is now over and done with eternally. No more problem classes!!!!!!!!!

Anasuya sent another problem paper through alan, proving some things never end. Not alan...

Mill Hill

Another clear night with observations of Saturn, a double star and some cluster or other.

One run finished overnight and was analysed. Saturn12 was the 12eV 0.9 BSR run, which finished. An email from IS states that further restrictions are now in effect around Keter, so any of these runs that fail have simply failed for good.

Runs

News of more marking from Anasuya...

Two runs finished overnight and have been analysed. All runs are either going or done, so no recoding and resetting off anymore.

SaturnX was the 12eV GS100m run. This was analysed, completing the GS100m set.

Saturn50000 was the 12eV BSR0.25 run. This was also analysed, changing 12eV's grade to a pass and completing the BSR0.25 set.

This leaves 12 runs filling fourteen slots (as the middle run of the three sets is the control run, which is the same for all three).

Have looked at thesis. Looks the same as always

Ok, back onto things for the paper (remember that). Grodent gave me examples of his stuff for maxwellian energy distributions of characteristic energy: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 15, 20, 30, 40, 50, 100, 200, 500 keV, equivalent to mean energies of: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 30, 40, 60, 80, 100, 200, 400, 1000 keV. For it to work best, I'll keep the mean at 40keV at the top, 2 at the bottom and 10 and 20 in the middle - ie use the 1, 5, 10 and 20 keV maxwellian results to run this.

These need to be normalised to 50 erg cm-1 s-1 (although I then need to pull slowly away from cgi units...). For each of them, I need to generate an electron distribution, with appropriate normalisation. I then need to extract the atmosphere from each of the Grodent datafiles and then run the generated electron spectrum into the atmosphere using RIDE.

Have sorted out some emails that needed deleting. What's that about avoidance?

Electron numbers now calculated.

Last runs set off

For the sensitivities thing. Excluding all the required reruns that'll follow in April, of course. Decided to wait no longer and have everything going continuously until they relent and finish.

Speaking of relentless. Marking time. Had a late script off Howarth and still have stuff from anasuya to do.

Howarth done. All astro/medical Anasuya scripts done. Just leaves the physicists behind. As ever.

Bit of stuff

One run completed today, the Saturn5000 40eV SD+1 run. This was the final 40eV run, and was analysed, recoded and set off as 12eV SD+1, meaning all 12eV SD runs are off, all 40eV runs are done, and, indeed, asides from the 100keV run, and 12eV runs, all is done. Sometime after the first week in March, the 12eV results should start rolling in, though this final run is taking a long while to set off due to TAMPA choosing today to launch mulitple copies of every program they have with no regard for proper submission protocols...

Also did all Howarth's marking.

Back to it

Meetings to do with seminar feedback today. Very positive.

Finished off Raman marking, then got some papers off Howarth, including one of the last lot, which has been dealt with, also saw anasuya about her marking, which needs swiftly shifting.

Problem class.

One run finished. Saturn500 finished the 40eV SD-1 run, was analysed recoded as 12eV SD-2 and reset off. This was the penultimate 40eV run remaining and means only two non 12eV runs remain to be completed. Also, only one of the SD 12eV slots is yet to be set off.

Run, marking, seminar

That's the plan.

The run that finished overnight was Saturn100, a 50eV SD-C run. It was analysed, recoded and set off as SD-C for 12eV. The analysis showed that it was the final 50eV run, meaning all energies except 12, 40 and 100,000 are done, with the remaining 100k and 40eV runs underway. Half of all the remaining to be completed and analysed 18 runs are SD runs.

Ok seminar. Three bits. Modelling, Photon, Auroral morphology - not in that order.

Begin with the Earth, starting at Bolearis, then shift outwards, until the Earth is just another planet. Show that visible light is just one of the emissions and the list of emissions on all eight planets (including the null of Mercury). Talk about ENAs at Mercury and why it hasn't an aurora. Talk about the dynamo at Venus, the swept aurora and how this is being applied to Mars. Move onto the Giant Planets, with Jupiter's internal dynamo, Saturn's state of affairs, and mention the other two. Then talk about how particle interactions change the current only analogy sometimes used. Have the photon as an anology. Then use it to introduce RIDE and shine up a result or two. Then finish and run off to Mill Hill to avoid questions...

Ok, most the way through it now. Finished off tomorrow.

More stuff

One run finished overnight:

Saturn50 50eV SD-1. This was analysed, recoded as 12eV SD-1 and set off again. No grade changes.

Mill Hill

Another quick note

One run:

Saturn12000 finished the 1keV SD+2 run, finishing off all 1keV runs. It was analysed and recoded as 12eV SD+2 and set off. Analysis revealed no grade changes beyond the end of 1keV (all energies asides from 100k, 12eV, 40eV and 50eV are now done). However, with only 11 runs left to be recorded as done, SD is finally down to one set of slots.

Quick note

Two completed runs:

Saturn5000 completed the 50eV SD+1 run, was analysed, recoded and set off as the 40eV SD+1 run (with a new 31 day runscript). Analysis saw no grade changes, but it did mean 22 runs were remaining to go - ie twice the number of available slots. Also, all 50eV runs and all 40eV runs were either done or going, indeed that is true for all energies except 12eV.

Saturn40 completed the 40eV SD+C run. This was analysed, recoded and reset off as the 12eV SD+C run. Analysis revealed no grade changes, but overall, we hit the 90% mark, so far as runs done goes.

Also spent half the (satur)day at Mill Hill, helping with the SPA tours.

Marking, marking, marking.

Marking

Ok, one run finished too. Saturn500 finished the 40eV SD-C run, was analysed, recoded and set off as SD-1. Analysis brought no grade changes, but SD finally hit the 80% complete mark. overall, just over 89% complete... 23 runs left to finish, eleven of which are currently going.

Marking

Have created a title for my seminar (under great duress) and grabbed a couple of images. Also tried to book the day off from Mill Hill...

Marking for Howarth done.

Another quick note

One run ended today

Saturn1000 doing the final 50eV GS run (GS1m). It was recoded and set off as GS1m for 12eV. Analysis revealed no grade changes.

Quick note

One run and a bit of marking done so far today.

Saturn100 finished the 50eV SD-2 run, and was recoded and set off as the 50eV SD-C run, the only unfilled slot of that energy. Analysis revealed no grade changes.

Three runs - and marking

Three runs have finished overnight (well, they didn't finish in an overnight burst, they just happened to finish, after a long time, between me leaving last night and arriving today... but you know what I mean.. don't you?)

Saturn12 is the 12eV BSR1.0 run, finished with a day to spare... It was recoded, analysed and reset off as BSR0.9. Analysis gave no grade changes, but it did finally finish off the BSR1.0 set of runs, the first of the BSRs to finish.

Saturn50 is the 50eV GS10m run. This was analysed and then recoded as SD-1 (since the last 50eV GS run is already being done) and set off, meaning all six slots that are destined to attack the SD 12eV runs are in the SD block, ready to roll once they've done their stuff on 40, 50 and 1000 eV. No grade changes.

Saturn50000 was the 12eV BSR0.1 run. This was analysed and recoded as BSR0.25. Analysis revealed no grade chages, but BSR0.1 became the second BSR set to finish.

A good day for 12eV!

...and some marking...

Marking, marking, marking.

It hasn't stopped... Raman's stuff may be done and ready to be shipped off, but Anasuya's stuff remains... it becomes today's task. And tomorrow's etc etc etc...

One run has come to an end, Saturn12000 doing the 1keV SD+C thing. This was analysed, recoded and set off as the SD+2 1keV run, which will be the last of the 1keV runs.

Marking, marking, marking.

Raman's stuff remains...

Just got some spam from an oscilloscope maker...!

A run finished. SaturnX doing the 12eV GS10k run. That has been analysed, recoded and reset off as 12eV GS100m. No grade changes yet, but GS10km is now utterly complete. And it is another 12eV run down.

Marking done! Unless Raman has more hidden away... Anasuya's next...

Another quick note

Two runs finished today.

Saturn500 was the 40eV SD-2 run. This was analysed, recoded and set off as SD-C. This marked the 33 runs left point, meaning if all the runs not yet analysed were run in the eleven slots, they'd be used three times each. It also means that since eleven of them are running, that only twenty-two runs remain to be set off. No grade changes.

Saturn5000 was the 50eV SD+C run. This was analysed, recoded and set off as SD+1. Analysis brought 50eV up to a first, meaning all energies except 12eV are now on a first of one sort or another. 12eV remains a fail.

Another run dun

The penultimate one of these fast runs.

Saturn1000 finished the 100keV GS100m. It was analysed, recoded as GS10km and set off for one final time. No grade changes etc.

Have got all the dissociation and ionisation potentials from NIST. Their electron impact ionisation cross-sections match with mine too. Still no word on scattering though! This means atom.f is finally finished.

Hurray! Found one! By typing in "total cross-section for CO" into google, I of course got the... well... CO2 one, but hey, it's still one of the three I need...

Now got CO as well... just need nitric oxide

Have extrapolated and interpolated my way through CO and CO2

and now have mined, interpolated and extrapolated NO as well. That's the easy bit done, now to stick them all into cross whilst managing not to delete any of the existing cross-sectionts that I intend to keep...

Scattering cross-sections now transferred laboriously to cross.f

One run to finish off with Saturn100 completed the final 100eV run (SD-2). It has since been set off as 50eV SD-2. Analysis was undertaken confirming 100eV is 100% done. No other grade changes.

Couple 'a runs

Since Steve isn't in after all...

Two runs have finished overnight

Saturn50 finished the 50eV GS100m run. It was analysed, recoded as GS10m and set off again. No surprises or grade changes.

Saturn1000 finished the 100keV GS10m run. It was analysed, recoded as GS100m and set off again. No surprises or grade changes again.

Dealing with those wonderful cross-sections:
Straub et al 1996 - no further information to extract
Lindsay et al 2000 - dissociation cross-sections for NO, plus further references - mined
Mangan et al 2000 - CO dissociation cross-sections - mined
Deutsch et al 2002 - relevant to deeper model (ionisation of an ion)
Butler and Dalgarno 1979 - protons
Butler et al 1979 - protons
Bieniek and Dalgarno 1979 - protons
Tian and Vidal 1998 - information obtained
Tian and Vidal 1998a - relevant to deeper model, up to quadruple ionisation/dissociation
Tian and Vidal 1998b - relevant to deeper model with C2H2 and Ch4 cross-secs as well as CO
Tian and Vidal 1998c - CO2 dissociation - mined

Good, that's dissociation done as well as ionisation. Only require elastic scattering and maybe a few of the excitations to finish with.

Its amazing how large the NO dissociation cross-section is compared to its ionisation cross-section, compare to the disparity between say N2 or O2. Must be something to do with the heterogenaity of the atoms redistributing electron density unevenly across the bond. As ever.

Yep, same thing with the CO one.

Even worse for CO2, guess its because its polyatomic too.

So now have all appropriate dissociation and ionisation cross-sections, just missing elastic and (eventually) excitations, though the latter aren't necessary for immediate evaluations of the profiles.

More and more and more...

Another block of maths demonstrating out of the way.

One run has finished. Saturn1000 slot 100keV GS1m run. Analysis was as expected. Recoded as GS10 version of same energy and set off again. Have decided to kill off all the fast runs asap rather than do them concurrently with the slow runs, then do all the slow runs in one big block - asides from those currently being done and their heirs...

Not that any 'fast' runs are left asides fro the 100keV ones. All medium to slow.

Also had a quick look at Makenzie's newly produced profiles. She hasn't produced the further out ones, which are the important ones yet, so will wait until tomorrow for discussions. Or later. Who knows...

...one last thing. References for Martian cross-sections kept from Europlanet, this list I will be going through for obvious reasons:
Straub et al 1996 - already got
Lindsay et al 2000 - now got
Manyan et al 2000 - ah, ManGan et al... ahem, now got...
Deutsch et al 2002 - now got
Haider et al 1992 (modelling) - JGR, dammit!
Erdman and Zopt 1983 (cameron band?) - ZIPF, what sort of a name is that? Far prefer Zopt... Anyway, not included in UCL's subscription to Planetary and space science, so no-go despite importance...
Fox and Dalgarno 1979 - JGR - though did get hold of three 1979 papers by Dalgarno relating to proton processes I was in dire need of for DICE...
Lummerzhien and Lilensten 1994 - Lummerzheim, given I own half his back catalogue, it sometimes seems, I should know how to spell his name... plus annales has withdrawn the PDF! Did they know I wanted it?
Tran and Vidal 1998 - TIan... now got, oh!, there's another, got it too. Waaaaait. A third useful Tian and Vidal 1998 has appeared with cross-sections, my they had a busy year - nope, here's number four, maybe Tian and Vidal 1998 is a generic reference to their entire career...
Torr and Torr 1985 (Photon)
Avalgan et al 1998 (Photon)
Hitchcock et al 1980 (Photon)
Masuoka 1994 (Photon)

Will deal with the photon stuff another time. Mostly have them, but no real prospect of a photon thing to deal with yet as Tommi is otherwise engaged.

I make no garrentees that any of those names are spelt correctly, or in any way resemble the correct spellings.

Couple of runs

Much of the day has been taken up with Mill Hill and taking up Outreach leaflets to the observatory, but beforehand two runs did finish, the analysis of which was kept until afterwards.

The first was Saturn1000 finishing off the 1keV GS runs with GS1m. This was recorded and then recoded as 100keV GS1m run and set off. Later analysis was as expected. No grade changes.

The second was Saturn12000, doing a 1keV SD run (SD+1). This was recorded, recoded as SD+C and set off, making it the penultimate 1keV run. Analysis as expected. SD grade changes to a first. It is 70% done, GS is more than 80% done and BSR is 90% done. Overall, just over 80% done.

Quick note

No entry yesterday as most the day was spent going down a blind alley - a paper promising dissociation cross-sections for the three species that turned out not to quite be what I wanted - it was dissociation plus attachement at once. I could do a bit more work to extract something useful from there, and of course the process will be useful for other things eventually, however, not for the time being... sigh...

Today's delight was a completed run. The penultimate 100eV run from the Saturn100 slot. This was analysed, recoded and set off again. Analysis yielded no grade changes, though it did mark the point at which 80% of all the runs was completed. This was the SD-C run. The new run is SD-2 and will mark the completion (in about six days) of the 100eV runs.

Bits and bobs

Upgrade to titan's IDL install affected to allow running of Solar2000. Now works

Have been thinking again about the suicidal x-ray problem. Suicidal x-rays refer to the effect that an x-ray flux impacting on a neutral atmosphere will have. The atmosphere gets ionised by the impact, creating electrons. Electrons have a similar size to the wavelength of x-rays, which means Compton scattering cross-sections see their peak in the x-ray region. This, in turn means that x-rays get scattered more by the electrons they create. The effect of scattering is that x-rays lose energy and become EUV or less, meaning the x-ray flux kills itself. The chapman function method of calculating this is to apply the cf and have a compton scattering addition to the path length, ignoring the creation of EUV photons and concurrent destruction of x-rays, not to mention the directional effects of the scattering.

Another thought experiment has included space charges created in the aurorae and the currents created by the churning of background electrons to remove it. Though this effect is well known as it causes the induced currents that knock out powerlines and stations in powerful substorms, the heating effect in the upper atmosphere doesn't seem to be as well considered...

Of course, the majority of the work done today was on the Mars model, getting hold of, interpolating and extrapolating NO ionisation cross-sections. That is nitrogen monoxide, not "no" cross-sections... though the feeling did occur...

Saturn5000 slot run of 50eV in SD+2 mode completed. Analysis raised 50eV grade to 2i. Recoded as SD+C and set off again.

More and more and more...

Saturn40 has finished the final 40eV GS run. This has been analysed, recoded and set off as an SD run. Analysis raises the 40eV grade to a first.

Some research done on Martian aurora. Altitude is about 129km, cf Martim altitude range of about 60-250km. Have got hold of a quick 1D Martian atmosphere to do a few runs on, but more cross-sections are required, as ever. The species involved are CO2, N2, O2, O, CO, NO and Ar. From the Earth, cross-sections are provided for N2, O2, O and Ar. This leaves CO2, CO and NO in need of some data, slightly unfortunate as the main emitting species is CO2 and other bands of interest include CO bands. Nevertheless, a quick browse about has netted a few cross-sections and as I know the names of the bands I need to work with, I can grab them - or at least have a better idea of where to look. A current and energy distribution have also been uncovered, suggesting a number flux can be determined, meaning I can then simulate a few emissions, see if they lie in the right area and are of the correct magnitude, then a more complex look should provide interesting things. Interesting things to look at include band emission ratios and the effect of pitch angle on all this, as field aligned electrons seem not to be dominant, apparently. We shall see.

The Martian atmosphere is a lot thinner than the Earth's, this means the number densities cover a very small altitude range, which in turn means a fast running program, hopefully. The low energy and flux of electrons involved in the Martian aurora should also help in that...

Atmosphere extrapolated. Tomorrow, I will create the program base.

A bit done

Problem class has taken up a couple of hours. Demonstrating mathematics with a half written answer sheet. How I love UCL...

The Thesis has also had a bit of attention. History of observations of the aurora, just the timeline, individual bits on particular observations to go in later. I knew that long winded talk I did last year would come in handy at some point...

Saturn500 finished the 40eV GS100m run. This is the last of the 40eV GS runs not being dealt with, so moved it onto the SD runs. 40eV might actually get finished! Analysis of the run complete, no grade changes, but 80% of GS runs now complete, along with 90% BSR runs, 65.7... etc % SD runs and 78.5... etc % of total runs.

Another quick note

Two runs completed today:

Saturn50 finished the 50eV GS10km run. This was analysed, with no grade changes, and the next run set up and off.

Saturn12000 finished the 1keV SD-1 run. This was also anaylsed, set up and off again.

Quick note

Saturn1000 finished the 1keV GS10m run. It was analysed, and the GS1m run set off.