Solar Physics

The Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) satellite, launched 2 April 1998, is a NASA Small Explorer (SMEX) that images the solar photosphere, transition region and corona with unprecedented spatial resolution and temporal continuity. To provide continuous coverage of solar phenomena, TRACE is located in a sun-synchronous polar orbit. The ∼700 Mbytes of data which are collected daily are made available for unrestricted use within a few days of observation. The instrument features a 30-cm Cassegrain telescope with a field of view of 8.5×.5 arc min and a spatial resolution of 1 arc sec (0.5 arc sec pixels). TRACE contains multilayer optics and a lumogen-coated CCD detector to record three EUV wavelengths and several UV wavelengths. It observes plasmas at selected temperatures from 6000 K to 10 MK with a typical temporal resolution of less than 1 min.

The National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) will revolutionize our ability to measure, understand, and model the basic physical processes that control the structure and dynamics of the Sun and its atmosphere. The first-light DKIST images, released publicly on 29 January 2020, only hint at the extraordinary capabilities that will accompany full commissioning of the five facility instruments. With this Critical Science Plan (CSP) we attempt to anticipate some of what those capabilities will enable, providing a snapshot of some of the scientific pursuits that the DKIST hopes to engage as start-of-operations nears. The work builds on the combined contributions of the DKIST Science Working Group (SWG) and CSP Community members, who generously shared their experiences, plans, knowledge, and dreams. Discussion is primarily focused on those issues to which DKIST will uniquely contribute.

The instrument SUMER - Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation is designed to investigate structures and associated dynamical processes occurring in the solar atmosphere, from the chromosphere through the transition region to the inner corona, over a temperature range from 104 to 2 × 106K and above. These observations will permit detailed spectroscopic diagnostics of plasma densities and temperatures in many solar features, and will support penetrating studies of underlying physical processes, including plasma flows, turbulence and wave motions, diffusion transport processes, events associated with solar magnetic activity, atmospheric heating, and solar wind acceleration in the inner corona. Specifically, SUMER will measure profiles and intensities of EUV lines; determine Doppler shifts and line broadenings with high accuracy; provide stigmatic images of the Sun in the EUV with high spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution; and obtain monochromatic maps of the full Sun and the inner corona or selected areas thereof. SUMER will be flown on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), scheduled for launch in November, 1995. This paper has been written to familiarize solar physicists with SUMER and to demonstrate some command procedures for achieving certain scientific observations.

This paper introduces and describes the radio and plasma wave investigation on the STEREO Mission: STEREO/WAVES or S/WAVES. The S/WAVES instrument includes a suite of state-of-the-art experiments that provide comprehensive measurements of the three components of the fluctuating electric field from a fraction of a hertz up to 16 MHz, plus a single frequency channel near 30 MHz. The instrument has a direction finding or goniopolarimetry capability to perform 3D localization and tracking of radio emissions associated with streams of energetic electrons and shock waves associated with Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). The scientific objectives include: (i) remote observation and measurement of radio waves excited by energetic particles throughout the 3D heliosphere that are associated with the CMEs and with solar flare phenomena, and (ii) in-situ measurement of the properties of CMEs and interplanetary shocks, such as their electron density and temperature and the associated plasma waves near 1 Astronomical Unit (AU). Two companion papers provide details on specific aspects of the S/WAVES instrument, namely the electric antenna system (Bale et al., Space Sci. Rev., 2007) and the direction finding technique (Cecconi et al., Space Sci. Rev., 2007).

We report here on the present state-of-the-art in algorithms used for resolving the 180° ambiguity in solar vector magnetic field measurements. With present observations and techniques, some assumption must be made about the solar magnetic field in order to resolve this ambiguity. Our focus is the application of numerous existing algorithms to test data for which the correct answer is known. In this context, we compare the algorithms quantitatively and seek to understand where each succeeds, where it fails, and why. We have considered five basic approaches: comparing the observed field to a reference field or direction, minimizing the vertical gradient of the magnetic pressure, minimizing the vertical current density, minimizing some approximation to the total current density, and minimizing some approximation to the field's divergence. Of the automated methods requiring no human intervention, those which minimize the square of the vertical current density in conjunction with an approximation for the vanishing divergence of the magnetic field show the most promise.

K. WILHELM Max-Planck-Institut für Aeronomie, D-37189 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany P. LEMAIRE Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale, Unité Mixte CNRS – Université, Paris XI, Bat 121, F-91405 Orsay, France W. CURDT, U. SCH ¨UHLE and E. MARSCH Max-Planck-Institut für ...

The SOLSTICE instrument consists of two identical scanning grating monochromators that cover the 115 - 320 nm wavelength range. For nominal operations one channel scans 115 - 190 nm and the other scans 160 - 320 nm, recording a complete ultraviolet solar irradiance ...

The medium-l program of the Michelson Doppler Imager instrument on board SOHO provides continuous observations of oscillation modes of angular degree, l, from 0 to approximately 300. The data for the program are partly processed on board because only about 3% of MDI observations can be transmitted continuously to the ground. The on-board data processing, the main component of which is Gaussian-weighted binning, has been optimized to reduce the negative influence of spatial aliasing of the high-degree oscillation modes. The data processing is completed in a data analysis pipeline at the SOI Stanford Support Center to determine the mean multiplet frequencies and splitting coefficients. The initial results show that the noise in the medium-l oscillation power spectrum is substantially lower than in ground-based measurements. This enables us to detect lower amplitude modes and, thus, to extend the range of measured mode frequencies. This is important for inferring the Sun's internal...

The present study reestablishes that the expansion procedure given in Roberts and Webb (1978), and its extension in the present paper to a slender magnetic flux tube in a uniform atmosphere with negligible gravity (including the effect of pressure variations in the external medium), is supported by an independent analysis of the special case of a uniform tube in a uniform atmosphere. A general form of the dispersion relation for a slender tube is obtained and its reduction under differing conditions is discussed. This analysis reveals that Wilson's (1978, 1979) criticism of the authors' original paper is ungrounded. The slender flux tube approximation appears to be a valid means of investigating motions in an intense magnetic flux tube.