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Observations from the Polar spacecraft, taken during a period of northward interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) show magnetosheath ions within the magnetosphere with velocity distributions resulting from multiple merging sites along the same field line. The observations from the TIDE instrument show two separate ion energy-time dispersions that are attributed to two widely separated (-20Re) merging sites. Estimates of the initial merging times show that they occurred nearly simultaneously (within 5 minutes.) Along with these populations, cold, ionospheric ions were observed counterstreaming along the field lines. The presence of such ions is evidence that these field lines are connected to the ionosphere on both ends. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that double merging can produce closed field lines populated by solar wind plasma. While the merging sites cannot be unambiguously located, the observations and analyses favor one site poleward of the northern cusp and a second site at low latitudes.

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We consider the phase diagram of a ferromagnetic system driven to a quantum phase transition with a tuning parameter $p$. Before being suppressed, the transition becomes of the first order at a tricritical point, from which wings emerge under application of the magnetic field $H$ in the $T$-$p$-$H$ phase diagram. We show that the edge of the wings merge with tangent slopes at the tricritical point.

We present a sample of 167 type 2 AGNs with double-peaked [O III] 4959,5007 narrow emission lines, selected from the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The double-peaked profiles can be well modeled by two velocity components, blueshifted and redshifted from the systemic velocity. Half of these objects have a more prominent redshifted component. In cases where the H-beta emission line is strong, it also shows two velocity components whose line-of-sight (LOS) velocity offsets are consistent with those of [O III]. The relative LOS velocity offset between the two components is typically a few hundred km/s, larger by a factor of ~ 1.5 than the line full width at half maximum of each component. The offset correlates with the host stellar velocity dispersion sigma*. The host galaxies of this sample show systematically larger sigma*, stellar masses, and concentrations, and older luminosity-weighted mean stellar ages than a regular type 2 AGN sample matched in redshift, [O III] 5007 equivalent width and luminosity; they show no significant difference in radio properties. These double-peaked features could be due to narrow-line region kinematics, or binary black holes. The statistical properties do not show strong preference for or against either scenario, and spatially resolved optical imaging, spectroscopy, radio or X-ray followup are needed to draw firm conclusions.

An analytical model of O-type configurations was derived, for visualizing the geometry and for numerical treatment of plasma flows. It was found that at a certain distance from the neutral line the mean particle motion became decoupled from that of magnetic field lines (which obey the MHD condition). The decoupling distance depended on initial conditions in momentum space, suggesting that the MHD approximation which averages out such conditions may not suffice for describing plasma dynamics near the neutral line. It was also found that after inflowing particles are decoupled from the field line motion, they go over to a mode of runaway acceleration along the neutral line. It is concluded that if merging occurs at an X-O pair, two particle populations may be expected - low energy particles accelerated adiabatically by earthward convection past the X-type line and high-energy particles convected towards the O-type line. The second acceleration process depends critically on the rapidity of merging and is therefore expected to vary considerably from event to event.