AbstractOver the last twenty years, orbiting coronagraphs have vastly increased the amount of observational material for the whitelight corona. Spanning almost two solar cycles, and augmented by ground-based K-coronameter, emission-line, and eclipse observations, these data allow us to assess,inter alia: the typical and atypical behavior of the corona; how the corona evolves on time scales from minutes to a decade; and (in some respects) the relation between photospheric, coronal, and interplanetary features. This talk will review recent results on these three topics. A remark or two will attempt to relate the whitelight corona between 1.5 and 6 R⊙to the corona seen at lower altitudes in soft X-rays (e.g., with Yohkoh). The whitelight emission depends only on integrated electron density independent of temperature, whereas the soft X-ray emission depends upon the integral of electron density squared times a temperature function. The properties of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) will be reviewed briefly and their relationships to other solar and interplanetary phenomena will be noted.
The 4 known AM Her stars or polars (AM Her, ANUMa, W Pup, and 2A0311-227) are characterized by large circular polarizations of 10-35%, (Tapia 1977a, b, Krzeminski and Serkowski 1977), an emission line spectrum with strong H and He lines (Crampton and Cowley 1977, Greenstein et al. 1977), complex photometric variations (Szkody 1978, Priedhorsky and Krzeminski 1978, Warner & Nather 1972), long term high and low states and short orbital periods (80-180 min.). Models of these systems envision a close binary containing a magnetic white dwarf primary (B ~ 108G) and late type main sequence secondary transferring material into an accretion funnel over one or both poles of the white dwarf (Stockman et al. 1977, Lamb & Masters 1979, Liebert et al. 1978).
The variation of theoretical line intensity ratios with electron density for Mg VI ion are presented. This study indicates that the line intensity ratios for Mg VI can be used to infer electron density for solar plasma.
Variability of the [OIII]4363/4340 H γ ratio in IC 4007 was established in 1956 by William Liller and L.H. Aller who attributed the changes to a gradual decrease of electron density with time. Subsequent 4363/4340 ratio fluctuations negated this explanation. Ferland pointed out that small changes in the radiative flux of the Planetary nebula nucleus (PNN) could explains the variations. Our pervious study emphasized IUE observations, here we compare high dispersion spectra obtained with the Hamilton Echelle Spectrograph with previous measurements to asses line intensity variations. Emission line variability in PNN spectra as noted by Mendez et al. (1988) and by other for HeII 4686 in NGC 6572 may offer significant clues. PNN 4686 appeared by 1990 in IC 4997. Possibly both of these PNN may be evolving into Wolf-Rayet objects, but this development does not necessarily imply that the nebular excitation will increase with time.
Photometry of AM Her Stars – Line and Continuum Emission