The conventional Grad–Shafranov (GS) method is designed to reconstruct a two-dimensional magnetohydrostatic structure with isotropic pressure. In this work, we developed a new GS solver (GS-like) that includes the effect of pressure anisotropy based on reduced equations from Sonnerup et al. The new GS solver is benchmarked, and the results are compared with two other GS solvers based on the conventional GS method and that from Teh. This solver is applied to reconstruct a Pc5 compressional wave event, which has mirror-like features and includes a significant pressure anisotropy (p ⊥/p ∥ ∼ 1.5, where p ⊥ and p ∥ are the thermal pressures perpendicular and parallel to the magnetic field), observed by the Magnetospheric Multiscale mission in the duskside outer magnetosphere on 2015 September 19. The recovered maps indicate that, within some model constraints, the wave in the selected time interval consists of two magnetic bottle-like structures, each with an azimuthal size of about 9000 km (wavenumber ∼44) and a larger field-aligned size. The spacecraft passed through the bottles at ∼1600 km southward of the bottle centers. Further multispacecraft measurements revealed that the Pc5 compressional wave propagates sunward along with the background plasma and retains the bottle-like structures, driven mainly by the ion diamagnetic currents. The reconstructed magnetic topology is similar to that described in previous empirical or theoretical antisymmetric standing wave models. This Pc5 compressional wave is possibly driven by drift-mirror-like instabilities.

We carry out an approach to dynamic manipulation of a nondiffracting cosine-Gauss plasmonic beam (CGPB) illuminated with an incident phase modulation within nanostructures by a spatial light modulator (SLM). By changing the hologram addressed on the SLM, dynamic control on the lobe width and the propagating direction of the CGPB is experimentally verified. Finally, we demonstrate an application example of this dynamic CGPB in routing optical signals to multichannel subwavelength wave guides through numerical simulation.

As one of the best ground-based photometric data set, Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) has been widely used as the reference to calibrate other surveys. In this work, we present an independent validation and recalibration of the PS1 photometry using spectroscopic data from the Large Sky Area Multi-Object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) DR7, and photometric data from the corrected Gaia Early Data Release 3 (EDR3) with the Stellar Color Regression (SCR) method. Using per band typically a total of 1.5 million LAMOST-PS1-Gaia stars as standards, we show that the PS1 photometric calibration precisions in the grizy filters are around 4 ∼ 5 mmag when averaged over 20′ regions. However, significant large- and small-scale spatial variation of magnitude offset, up to over 1%, probably caused by the calibration errors in the PS1, are found for all the grizy filters. The calibration errors in different filters are uncorrelated, and are slightly larger for the g and y filters. We also detect moderate magnitude-dependent errors (0.005, 0.005, 0.005, 0.004, 0.003 mag per magnitude in the 14–17 mag range for the grizy filters, respectively) in the PS1 photometry by comparing with the Gaia EDR3 and other catalogs. The errors are likely caused by the systematic uncertainties in the PSF magnitudes. We provide two-dimensional maps to correct for such magnitude offsets in the LAMOST footprint at different spatial resolutions from 20′ to 160′. The results demonstrate the power of the SCR method in improving the calibration precision of wide-field surveys when combined with the LAMOST spectroscopy and Gaia photometry.

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Understanding the origins of small-scale flats of CCDs and their wavelength-dependent variations plays an important role in high-precision photometric, astrometric, and shape measurements of astronomical objects. Based on the unique flat data of 47 narrowband filters provided by JPAS-Pathfinder, we analyze the variations of small-scale flats as a function of wavelength. We find moderate variations (from about 1.0% at 390 nm to 0.3% at 890 nm) of small-scale flats among different filters, increasing toward shorter wavelengths. Small-scale flats of two filters close in central wavelengths are strongly correlated. We then use a simple physical model to reproduce the observed variations to a precision of about ±0.14% by considering the variations of charge collection efficiencies, effective areas, and thicknesses between CCD pixels. We find that the wavelength-dependent variations of the small-scale flats of the JPAS-Pathfinder camera originate from inhomogeneities of the quantum efficiency (particularly charge collection efficiency), as well as the effective area and thickness of CCD pixels. The former dominates the variations in short wavelengths, while the latter two dominate at longer wavelengths. The effects on proper flat-fielding, as well as on photometric/flux calibrations for photometric/slitless spectroscopic surveys, are discussed, particularly in blue filters/wavelengths. We also find that different model parameters are sensitive to flats of different wavelengths, depending on the relations between the electron absorption depth, photon absorption length, and CCD thickness. In order to model the wavelength-dependent variations of small-scale flats, a small number (around 10) of small-scale flats with well-selected wavelengths are sufficient to reconstruct small-scale flats in other wavelengths.