🔬 Category

physics.space-ph

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.

Spatio-temporal analysis of helioseismic quasi-biennial oscillations

This study analyzes helioseismic p-mode frequency shifts from GONG data across solar cycles 23, 24, and the ascending phase of 25 to reveal that quasi-biennial oscillations exhibit weak latitudinal dependence with nearly constant ~3-year periods at high latitudes, amplitudes that scale with magnetic activity and mode frequency, and a partial decoupling from the solar cycle strength as evidenced by differing amplitude-to-cycle ratios and slopes between cycles.

Amir Hasanzadeh, Anne-Marie Broomhall, Dmitrii Kolotkov, Tishtrya Mehta2026-04-14🔭 astro-ph

Interaction of Strong Electromagnetic Waves with Unmagnetized Pair Plasmas

This paper investigates the interaction of strong electromagnetic waves with unmagnetized pair plasmas, demonstrating that the process is governed by a single nonlinearity parameter which determines whether the wave acts as a relativistic piston driving a shock, with implications for neutron star radio pulses and future laser experiments.

Navin Sridhar (Stanford University), Emanuele Sobacchi (GSSI, L'Aquila, INFN, Assergi), Lorenzo Sironi (Columbia University, CCA/Flatiron Institute), Masanori Iwamoto (Kobe University, Kyoto Universit (…)2026-04-14🔬 physics.optics

Characterization of compressible fluctuations in solar wind streams dominated by balanced and imbalanced turbulence: Parker Solar Probe, Solar Orbiter and Wind observations

Using multi-spacecraft observations, this study characterizes compressible fluctuations in solar wind turbulence, revealing that while slow magnetosonic modes dominate the compressible energy budget and explain observed dependencies on plasma beta and radial distance, a significant correlated (fast mode-like) component remains unexplained by current linear or nonlinear theories.

C. A. Gonzalez, C. Gonzalez, A. Tenerani2026-04-13🔭 astro-ph

Solar Wind Classifications at Mars using Machine Learning Techniques

This paper utilizes an unsupervised machine learning framework combining Principal Component Analysis and K-Means clustering on MAVEN spacecraft data to identify and characterize distinct slow, fast, intermediate, and compressed solar wind regimes at Mars, revealing their modulation by solar activity across Cycles 24 and 25.

Catherine E. Regan, Silvia Ferro, Austin M. Smith, Alvin J. G. Angeles, Nicholas A. Gross, Farzad Kamalabadi, Marco Velli, Jasper S. Halekas2026-04-13🔬 physics

Reduced-Mass Orbital AI Inference via Integrated Solar, Compute, and Radiator Panels

This paper proposes a distributed compute architecture for Sun-Synchronous Orbit satellites that integrates solar, compute, and radiator functions into small panels to achieve high specific power and thermal efficiency, enabling a single Starship-launched satellite to deliver over 100 kW of compute power per metric ton and support thousands of simultaneous large language model inferences.

Stephen Gaalema, Samuel Indyk, Clinton Staley2026-04-10🔬 physics.app-ph

New insights from cross-correlation studies between solar activity indices and cosmic-ray flux during Forbush decrease events

This study utilizes cross-correlation analysis of data from the SOHO/ERNE instrument and neutron monitor networks across two solar cycles to demonstrate that power exponents modeling solar energetic particle fluence spectra are superior predictors of Forbush decrease magnitude compared to coronal mass ejection velocities.

Mihailo Savić, Nikola Veselinović, Aleksandar Dragić, Dimitrije Maletić, Dejan Joković Vladimir Udovičić, Radomir Banjanac, David Knežević2026-04-09🔭 astro-ph

Deterministic and probabilistic neural surrogates of global hybrid-Vlasov simulations

This paper demonstrates that graph neural network-based deterministic and probabilistic surrogates can accurately and efficiently emulate 5D hybrid-Vlasov simulations of solar wind-magnetosphere interactions, achieving over two orders of magnitude speedup while maintaining high predictive correlations for electromagnetic fields and plasma moments.

Daniel Holmberg, Ivan Zaitsev, Markku Alho, Ioanna Bouri, Fanni Franssila, Haewon Jeong, Minna Palmroth, Teemu Roos2026-04-08🔬 physics

Statistics of blob properties in two types of coronal streamers

A statistical analysis of 2018 SOHO/LASCO/C2 observations reveals that streamer blobs originating from active regions exhibit significantly higher occurrence rates, initial velocities, and accelerations compared to those from quiet equatorial streamers, demonstrating that increased coronal base activity drives more dynamic solar wind structures.

Haiyi Li, Zhenghua Huang, Maria S. Madjarska, Youqian Qi, Hui Fu, Ming Xiong, Lidong Xia2026-04-08🔭 astro-ph

Modeling complex plasma instabilities in space plasmas - Three-component electron formalism of heat-flux instabilities

This paper demonstrates that modeling space plasma heat-flux instabilities with a realistic three-component electron formalism (core, halo, and strahl) reveals significantly different growth rates and complex mode interplays compared to simplified two-component models, offering new insights into heat-flux regulation.

Dustin L. Schröder, Marian Lazar, Horst Fichtner, Rodrigo A. López, Stefaan Poedts2026-04-08🔬 physics

Prediction of Magnetic Flux Evolution During Solar Active Region Emergence using Long Short-Term Memory Networks

This paper demonstrates that a standard Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) network outperforms a more complex encoder-decoder architecture in predicting solar active region magnetic flux evolution 3–10 hours in advance using continuum intensity and solar oscillation power maps as inputs.

Eren Dogan, Spiridon Kasapis, Sarang Patil, Jonas Tirona, John Stefan, Irina Kitiashvili, Mengjia Xu, Alexander Kosovichev2026-04-07🔭 astro-ph