Letters of Intent received in 2017

LoI 2019-2012
Solar Physics in the Next Decade: New Instruments, New Techniques

Topics

• Solar physics science challenges in the coming decade
o Heating of the solar atmosphere and generation of the solar wind
o Magnetic field generation, activity, and instability
o Acceleration and transport of energetic particles
• New instrumentation to meet the challenges: X-ray, UV/EUV, O/IR, radio, and in situ measurements
• New observational techniques – imaging spectroscopy, panchromatic observations
• New data visualization and modeling – visualization of and parameter extraction from multi-dimensional data; 3D modeling of the solar atmosphere and solar wind
• Synergies between ground and space based instrumentation

Rationale

The coming decade will see the completion and maturation of stunning new instrumentation designed to address outstanding problems in solar physics. These include instruments on the ground (DKIST, GST, EST, ALMA, JVLA, EOVSA, MUSER) and in space (PSP, SO). Many of these instruments are designed to exploit new observing techniques, such as imaging spectroscopy and spectropolarimetry, to enable fundamentally new observables. This symposium will bring together a broad cross-section of the solar and heliospheric physics community to identify outstanding scientific problems and to anticipate areas where progress will be made in light of the wealth of new instruments, coupled with new data visualization and mining techniques, and data modeling.

It is widely recognized that spatially-resolved multi-wavelength observations are the key to deriving physical parameters from remote-sensing data. An explosion of new or soon to be available instrumentation in solar research is exploiting rapid technological advances to enable major advances in imaging spectroscopy, with the goal to both discover new phenomena and place them in the context of firmly measured, spatially-resolved physical quantities such as temperature, density, magnetic field, turbulent velocities, and others. Although the techniques vary widely with wavelength, the challenges of handling the resulting large data volumes and visualizing such hyperspectral imaging data are common across the discipline. The creation of 3D models that can both incorporate the new wealth of detail and drive new understanding of the underlying phenomena is also a significant challenge.

While several solar-related IAU symposia have been held in the last decade, this will be the first in more than 15 years to broadly assess the current status of outstanding problems in solar physics and to anticipate progress through next generation instrumentation, synergies between instruments, data visualization and mining, and advanced modeling.

The symposium in 2019 is timely. The Parker Solar Probe will be launched in 2018, DKIST will see first light in 2019, and the Solar Orbiter will be launched in 2019. As the site of DKIST, Maui is an ideal site for this symposium.

We have contacted a number of people to form a tentative science organizing committee (SOC), aiming at wide regional representation. The current proposed SOC includes the following researchers who have agreed to participate should our symposium plans materialize:

SOC:
Dale Gary (US, co-chair)
Tim Bastian (US, co-chair)
Gianna Cauzzi (IT)
Peter Gallagher (IE)
Yuhong Fan (US)
Louise Harra (UK)
Lucia Kleint (CH)
Thomas Rimmele (US)
Masumi Shimojo (JP)
Sami Solanki (GM)
Baolin Tan (CH)
Nicole Vilmer (FR)
Sven Wedemeyer (NO)

LOC:
Valentin Pillet (NSO, US, chair)
Sarah Jaeggli (NSO, US)
Tom Schad (NSO, US)
Others TBD