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The coupling of a levitated submicron particle and an optical cavity field promises access to a unique parameter regime both for macroscopic quantum experiments and for high-precision force sensing. We report a demonstration of such controlled interactions by cavity cooling the center-of-mass motion of an optically trapped submicron particle. This paves the way for a light–matter interface that can enable room-temperature quantum experiments with mesoscopic mechanical systems.

A multispecies energetic particle intensity enhancement event at 1 au is analyzed. We identify this event as a corotating interaction region (CIR) structure that includes a stream interface (SI), a forward-reverse shock pair, and an embedded heliospheric current sheet (HCS). The distinct feature of this CIR event is that (1) the high-energy (>1 MeV) ions show significant flux enhancement at the reverse wave (RW)/shock of the CIR structure, following their passage through the SI and HCS. The flux amplification appears to depend on the energy per nucleon. (2) Electrons in the energy range of 40.5–520 keV are accelerated immediately after passing through the SI and HCS regions, and the flux quickly reaches a peak for low-energy electrons. At the RW, only high-energy electrons (∼520 keV) show significant local flux enhancement. The CIR structure is followed by a fast-forward perpendicular shock driven by a coronal mass ejection (CME), and we observed a significant flux enhancement of low-energy protons and high-energy electrons. Specifically, the 210–330 keV proton and 180–520 keV electron fluxes are enhanced by approximately 2 orders of magnitude. This suggests that the later ICME-driven shock may accelerate particles out of the suprathermal pool. In this paper, we further present that for CIR-accelerated particles, the increase in turbulence power at SI and RWs may be an important factor for the observed flux enhancement in different species. The presence of ion-scale waves near the RW, as indicated by the spectral bump near the proton gyrofrequency, suggests that the resonant wave–particle interaction may act as an efficient energy transferrer between energetic protons and ion-scale waves.

In situ observations of energetic particles associated with interplanetary (IP) shocks, known as energetic storm particle (ESP) events, often show time-intensity profiles quite different from predictions of classical diffusive shock acceleration theory. We use numerical simulations, including test-particle simulations and hybrid simulations (with fluid electrons and kinetic protons) for shocks propagating into a turbulent magnetic field to study the ESP intensity-time profiles across a strong IP shock. We find that several types of energetic particle intensity profiles similar to in situ observations can be produced in our simulations. The peak of energetic particle count is often near, but can be shifted from, the locations of the shock front, with the peak usually being observed downstream of the shock. These findings may help understand particle acceleration at both traveling IP shocks and shocks in other heliospheric and astrophysical environments.

Solar energetic particle (SEP) events have been observed by the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) spacecraft since its launch in 2018. These events include sources from solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). The IS⊙IS instrument suite on board PSP is measuring ions over energies from ∼ 20 keV nucleon−1 to 200 MeV nucleon−1 and electrons from ∼ 20 keV to 6 MeV. Previous studies sought to group CME characteristics based on their plasma conditions and arrived at general descriptions with large statistical errors, leaving open questions on how to properly group CMEs based solely on their plasma conditions. To help resolve these open questions, the plasma properties of CMEs have been examined in relation to SEPs. Here, we reexamine one plasma property, the solar wind proton temperature, and compare it to the proton SEP intensity in a region immediately downstream of a CME-driven shock for seven CMEs observed at radial distances within 1 au. We find a statistically strong correlation between proton SEP intensity and bulk proton temperature, indicating a clear relationship between SEPs and the conditions in the solar wind. Furthermore, we propose that an indirect coupling of SEP intensity to the level of turbulence and the amount of energy dissipation that results is mainly responsible for the observed correlation between SEP intensity and proton temperature. These results are key to understanding the interaction of SEPs with the bulk solar wind in CME-driven shocks and will improve our ability to model the interplay of shock evolution and particle acceleration.

We present analyses of 0.05–2 MeV ions from the 2022 February 16 energetic storm particle event observed by Parker Solar Probe's (PSP) IS⊙IS/EPI-Lo instrument at 0.35 au from the Sun. This event was characterized by an enhancement in ion fluxes from a quiet background, increasing gradually with time with a nearly flat spectrum, rising sharply near the arrival of the coronal mass ejection (CME)–driven shock, becoming nearly a power-law spectrum, then decaying exponentially afterward, with a rate that was independent of energy. From the observed fluxes, we determine diffusion coefficients, finding that far upstream of the shock the diffusion coefficients are nearly independent of energy, with a value of 1020 cm2 s−1. Near the shock, the diffusion coefficients are more than 1 order of magnitude smaller and increase nearly linearly with energy. We also determine the source of energetic particles, by comparing ratios of the intensities at the shock to estimates of the quiet-time intensity to predictions from diffusive shock acceleration theory. We conclude that the source of energetic ions is mostly the solar wind for this event. We also present potential interpretations of the near-exponential decay of the intensity behind the shock. One possibility we suggest is that the shock was overexpanding when it crossed PSP and the energetic particle intensity decreased behind the shock to fill the expanding volume. Overexpanding CMEs could well be more common closer to the Sun, and this is an example of such a case.

G-protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs) constitute the largest family of receptors and major pharmacological targets. Whereas many GPCRs have been shown to form di-/oligomers, the size and stability of such complexes under physiological conditions are largely unknown. Here, we used direct receptor labeling with SNAP-tags and total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy to dynamically monitor single receptors on intact cells and thus compare the spatial arrangement, mobility, and supramolecular organization of three prototypical GPCRs: the β ₁-adrenergic receptor (β ₁AR), the β ₂-adrenergic receptor (β ₂AR), and the γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA B) receptor. These GPCRs showed very different degrees of di-/oligomerization, lowest for β ₁ARs (monomers/dimers) and highest for GABA B receptors (prevalently dimers/tetramers of heterodimers). The size of receptor complexes increased with receptor density as a result of transient receptor–receptor interactions. Whereas β ₁-/β ₂ARs were apparently freely diffusing on the cell surface, GABA B receptors were prevalently organized into ordered arrays, via interaction with the actin cytoskeleton. Agonist stimulation did not alter receptor di-/oligomerization, but increased the mobility of GABA B receptor complexes. These data provide a spatiotemporal characterization of β ₁-/β ₂ARs and GABA B receptors at single-molecule resolution. The results suggest that GPCRs are present on the cell surface in a dynamic equilibrium, with constant formation and dissociation of new receptor complexes that can be targeted, in a ligand-regulated manner, to different cell-surface microdomains.

In an effort to develop computational tools for predicting radiation hazards from solar energetic particles (SEPs), we have created a data-driven physics-based particle transport model to calculate the injection, acceleration, and propagation of SEPs from coronal mass ejection (CME) shocks traversing through the solar corona and interplanetary magnetic fields. The model runs on an input of corona and heliospheric plasma and magnetic field configuration from a magnetohydrodynamic model driven by solar photospheric magnetic field measurements superposed with observed CME shocks determined from coronagraph images. SEP source particles are injected at the shock using the result of diffusive shock acceleration formulation from a characteristic obliquity-dependent injection from a heated solar wind thermal tail population. With several advanced computation techniques involving stochastic simulation and integration, the model obtains the particle intensity at any location in interplanetary space through the rigorous solution to the time-dependent 5D focus transport equation in the phase space that includes perpendicular diffusion. We apply the model to the 2011 November 3 CME event. The calculation results reproduce multispacecraft SEP observations at Earth and STEREO-B reasonably well without normalization of particle flux. The observations at STEREO-A can be reproduced by rescaling particle energy or modified energy dependence of particle diffusion coefficients. This circumsolar SEP event seen by spacecraft at Earth, STEREO-A, and STEREO-B at widely separated longitudes can be explained by diffusive shock acceleration by a single CME shock with a moderate speed.

Previous studies have highlighted the significance of perpendicular diffusion in the decay phase of particle intensities for >10 MeV energetic protons. Recently, an observational study has indicated that the peak intensity ratios across different energy channels (13−64 MeV protons) remain almost constant as the spacecraft location varies in many solar proton events. This interesting phenomenon is referred to as equal ratio relations. These findings suggest that perpendicular diffusion not only affects particle intensity during the decay phase but also throughout the rising phase. In this study, we perform numerical simulations of >10 MeV energetic proton events observed by STEREO A, STEREO B, and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. Our findings demonstrate that perpendicular diffusion strongly affects the entire time profile of particle intensity for spacecraft not magnetically connected to the source region. The numerical simulation results indicate that in order to reproduce observations, we need to include perpendicular diffusion near the source region and in interplanetary space. Perpendicular diffusion leads to nearly uniform peak ratios at different locations and contributes to the formation of the reservoir phenomenon during the decay phase. Consequently, these numerical results support the significant role of perpendicular diffusion in the formation of the longitudinal distribution of >10 MeV proton events.

When the Wind spacecraft started its only journey to Lagrange point L2 in 2003 October, it entered an isotropic turbulent environment with radially mean magnetic field (Bm) and slow solar wind speed (VSW). On October 26, it detected a particle intensity dropout interval following a gradual solar energetic particle event. In addition, it recorded three magnetic field rotations corresponding to one-sided increases in VSW, indicating the occurrence of magnetic switchback in the Alfvénic solar wind. Since the last switchback interval is just before the dropout interval, we studied the difference of the pitch angle distribution (PAD) of protons between them. In the switchback interval (Bm perpendicular to Vsw), the PAD maximum is located at μ ∼ +1, where μ is the pitch angle cosine, while, in the dropout interval (Bm antiparallel to Vsw), the maximum is at μ ∼ 0. The difference indicates that protons with greater gyroradii cannot be confined in the curved magnetic field lines and can be injected into the dropout region with μ ∼ 0. Therefore, the analysis of proton pitch angle scattering in the dropout interval can be greatly simplified due to the short duration of the interval and the sharp initial conditions. Compared with the analytical solution of the Fokker–Planck equation, we deduce that the parallel mean free path of 2.1 MeV protons is 3.7 ± 0.5 au, which means that the dropout of proton intensity in the isotropic turbulent regime is also caused by insufficient spatial diffusion of protons.

Energetic proton events associated with a stream interaction region (SIR) were observed by two Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) and WIND spacecraft from 2007 September 19 to September 25. Different from the measurements of STEREO-A and WIND, the observational data of STEREO-B show additional particle intensity increases when the spacecraft is immersed into the compound stream region with poor compression signatures after the passage of the SIR. In order to investigate this particular event, we simulated proton transport with a solar wind pattern obtained from the two-dimensional analytical model driven by plasma and magnetic field data of the spacecraft. We find that the additional energetic proton event is not an autonomous event created by the compound streams and is closely associated with the accelerated particles in the preceding SIR structure. We highlight the variation in particle distribution as a function of radial distance within the SIR. The magnetic field configuration in the compound stream region observed by STEREO-B provides a more direct connection to the source particle region, which presents a view to explain the differences between the energetic proton observations of the three spacecraft.