The structure and dynamics of the outer solar atmosphere are reviewed with emphasis on the role played by the magnetic field. Contemporary observations that focus on high resolution imaging over a range of temperatures, as well as UV, EUV and hard X-ray spectroscopy, demonstrate the presence of a vast range of temporal and spatial scales, mass motions, and particle energies present. By focussin...

The breadth and power of the set of solar and helio-spheric observatories presently in space is unprecedented. Their observations generally began at solar minimum or in the declining phase of the past maximum , but we anticipate that most of the instruments will be able to observe the rise to the next maximum and the events that happen then. The second orbit of Ulysses will be especially intere...

We describe a simple analytic model for the magnetic field in the solar corona and interplanetary space which is appropriate to solar minimum conditions. The model combines an azimuthal current sheet in the equatorial plane with an axisymmetric multipole field representing the internal magnetic field of the Sun. The radial component of the field filling interplanetary space is approximately mon...

A heliospheric density model is derived by evaluating the spherical solutions of magnetohydrostatic equations including the thermal pressure and the gravitational force of the Sun. The model resulting as a special solution of Parker’s wind equation covers a range from the low corona up to 5 AU and, surprisingly, agrees very well with observations. Such a model is required for the interpretation...

Disc spectra from highly luminous black hole binaries are observed to be rather simple, despite theoretical predictions to the contrary. We collate the disc-dominated spectra from multiple observations of 10 separate sources, and show that these overwhelmingly follow a multi-temperature disc blackbody spectrum with luminosity∝ T , and that such discs are stable. These results are in conflict wi...

We show that the sharp cutoff in the hard X-ray spectrum of NGC 4151, unusual for Seyfert 1 galaxies, can be reconciled with the average Seyfert 1 spectrum if we assume that the central source is completely hidden from our line of sight by the thick part of the accretion disk or by the broad emission line clouds. The observed X-ray radiation is produced by scattering of the Seyfert 1-type spect...

We present an instability occurring in the inner part of disks threaded by a moderately strong vertical (poloidal) magnetic field. Its mechanism is such that a spiral density wave in the disk, driven by magnetic stresses (rather than self-gravity as in galactic spirals), becomes unstable by exchanging angular momentum with a Rossby vortex it generates at its corotation radius. This angular mome...

Charge-exchange reactions at high energies provide new channels for the remote sensing of solar high-energy particles, as demonstrated by the recent detection of 1.8-5 MeV hydrogen atoms from a solar flare [1]. Orrall and Zirker [2] had earlier proposed the detection of low-energy protons via charge-exchange atomic reactions in the solar atmosphere, leading in the simplest case to extended red-...

We develop a new method to describe the accretion flow in the corona above a thin disk around a black hole in vertical and radial extent. The model is based on the same physics as the earlier one-zone model, but now modified including inflow and outflow of mass, energy and angular momentum from and towards neighboring zones. We determine the radially extended coronal flow for different mass flo...

We revisit the question of the nature of ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) through a detailed investigation of their spectral shape, using the highest quality X-ray data available in the XMM-Newton public archives ( ∼ > 10, 000 counts in their EPIC spectrum). We confirm that simple spectral models commonly used for the analysis and interpretation of ULXs (power-law continuum and multi-colour d...