179 papers
Space physics explores the dynamic environment surrounding our planet and the wider solar system, focusing on how charged particles, magnetic fields, and solar winds interact with celestial bodies. This field helps us understand phenomena like auroras, space weather that can disrupt satellites, and the fundamental behavior of plasma in the vacuum of space. It bridges the gap between astronomy and particle physics, revealing the invisible forces that shape our cosmic neighborhood.
At Gist.Science, we process every new preprint in this category as it appears on arXiv, ensuring you get immediate access to the latest research. For each paper, we provide both a detailed technical summary for experts and a plain-language explanation that makes complex concepts understandable for everyone. Below are the latest space physics papers from arXiv, curated and simplified for your reading.
This paper presents an open-access database and user interface that centralizes fragmented historical and contemporary data on lunar regolith physical and geotechnical properties, as well as simulants, to enhance their accessibility and usability for scientific and engineering research.
This paper presents a physics-based numerical simulation of the April 11, 2013 solar energetic particle event using a novel Poisson bracket scheme and a new shock-capturing tool within the Space Weather Modeling Framework to validate synthetic observables against multi-spacecraft data and elucidate the impact of complex shock surfaces on particle acceleration.
Using the global hybrid-Vlasov code Vlasiator with ionospheric coupling, this study demonstrates that flux transfer events at Earth's magnetopause generate Alfvénic field-aligned currents and rotational geoelectric field structures near the noon meridian, which propagate toward the nightside as FTE magnetic footpoints are rerouted by 3D magnetic null points to the Region 1 ionospheric current system.
This study presents a new quasi-linear radial diffusion coefficient for Earth's magnetosphere that accounts for spatially localized Ultra-Low Frequency (ULF) waves, revealing that while broad coverage yields efficiency similar to uniform models, waves confined to less than 10% of a particle's drift orbit actually enhance radial transport by 10 to 25%.
This study identifies a critical "conversion layer" near the Alfvén surface where the balance between magnetic and kinetic energy fluxes facilitates the conversion of magnetic energy to particle energy, thereby controlling the evolution of magnetic deflections and driving the formation of switchbacks in the super-Alfvénic solar wind.
This study analyzes an X9-class solar flare to reveal that rapid flare ribbon downflows consist of two distinct stages driven by chromospheric condensations and flare-induced coronal rain, respectively, while exhibiting persistent quasi-periodic pulsations likely caused by MHD oscillations in the magnetic arcade.
This paper reports the first multi-spacecraft observation of sunward streaming 3He-rich solar energetic particles by Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe, revealing that these particles traveled significantly longer paths than expected due to redirection by a slow coronal mass ejection originating from active region 13615.
This paper demonstrates that anisotropic scattering of solar radio bursts by magnetised plasma density irregularities encodes the interplanetary magnetic field structure in observed emission directivity, enabling a novel method for remotely reconstructing large-scale heliospheric and astrophysical magnetic fields.
This study identifies and characterizes a novel type of transient structure, termed "HFA-like foreshock compressional boundaries," which appears at the edges of traveling foreshocks and exhibits hot flow anomaly signatures despite lacking solar wind beam heating, suggesting a distinct formation mechanism related to the thickness of interplanetary magnetic field discontinuities relative to suprathermal ion gyroradii.