Misc. Documents

• Solar Wind Origin, by S. R. Cranmer, an 8000-word article written about the observations and theories concerning the origin of the solar wind in the Sun's hot corona. This article was submitted to the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Physics in July 2018 and published online in July 2019.
      The article is online here.

• Exploring the Solar Wind with Ultraviolet Light, by S. R. Cranmer, a brief HTML article written for the media, based on a review presentation given at the April 2000 meeting of the American Physical Society.
      Original HTML verison is here.

• Coronal Holes, by S. R. Cranmer, a 4000-word article written about coronal holes and the high-speed solar wind for the Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics, a four-volume reference work published in January 2001 by Institute of Physics Publishing, in collaboration with Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
      Find it on ADS or in a local PDF copy.

• Winds that Sail on Starlight, by Mike Gannis, featuring S. P. Owocki, S. R. Cranmer, and K. G. Gayley. Published in the Winter 1997 issue of Gather/Scatter, the Quarterly Journal of Computational Science and Engineering for the San Diego Supercomputer Center, volume 13, no. 1.
      A local PDF copy is here.

Unpublished Notes

• Intuitive but Non-Rigorous Explanations of Infinite Numbers: A summary of mathematical concepts of infinity that is hopefully understandable by non-mathematicians. These notes start by discussing huge (but still describable) finite numbers, then they proceed to the concepts of fixed points, Cantor's countably infinite ordinals, transfinite cardinals and the continuum hypothesis, and then to more recent attempts to define still-larger infinities called large cardinals.
      Available as an arXiv preprint: arXiv:2401.07346

• Non-Specular Scattering in Solar Coronagraphs: A Micro-Rough Guide: This document summarizes a set of calculations that was done to estimate the amount of non-specular scattering in a solar coronagraph (i.e., "leakage" from the bright solar disk) given a primary reflecting mirror with specific dimensions, aberrations, and micro-roughness properties.
      Available as a local PDF copy.

• On Competing Models of Coronal Heating and Solar Wind Acceleration: The Debate in '08: In preparation for lively debate at the May 2008 SPD/AGU Meeting in Fort Lauderdale, this document was written to briefly lay out my own view of the evolving controversy over how the solar wind is accelerated. It is still unknown to what extent the solar wind is fed by flux tubes that remain open (and are energized by footpoint-driven wavelike fluctuations), and to what extent much of the mass and energy is input more intermittently from closed loops into the open-field regions.
      Available as an arXiv preprint: arXiv:0804.3058 . . . Subtitle inspired by Ali and Frazier (1975).

• Monte Carlo solutions to diffusion-like equations: A practical application of the Ito Calculus: Unoriginal notes (from 2003) that describe exact rules for updating the positions of particles in a Monte Carlo model when the particles obey a range of diffusion-type partial differential equations. Nothing really new; it was just helpful for me to lay it all out in detail for the full range of useful cases.
      Available as a local PDF copy.

• Potential Hot/Massive Star Areas of Interest for Stellar Imager: A brief summary (from 2004) of some major issues concerning hot and massive stars that could be addressed with Stellar Imager, a NASA Vision Mission that would use ultra-high angular resolution at ultraviolet wavelengths to image the surfaces of stars and probe their interiors with asteroseismology.
      Available as a local PDF copy. . . . see also a related Astro2010 white paper.

• Solar Wind Physics with Solar Probe: An outline (from 1999) of how in situ data from the proposed Solar Probe mission could be helpful in answering basic questions about coronal heating and the acceleration of the high-speed solar wind. 20 specific issues are discussed relating to particle velocity distribution and field fluctuation measurements.
      Available as a local PDF copy.

• UVCS/SOHO Observations of Jupiter in January 1997: An Independent Calibration of the White Light Channel: An analysis of data taken to provide an absolute photometric calibration of one of the channels on the UVCS instrument. [Revised version: June 2001]
      Available as a local PDF copy.

• A Simple Approach to Mutual Irradiation Heating in Close Binary Systems: A brief note that derives an approximate analytic expression for the rise in temperature expected in the outer layers of stars in close binary systems that are "irradiated" by incoming radiation from their companion.
      Available as a local PDF copy.