The Origin, Early Evolution and Predictability of Solar Eruptions

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) were discovered in the early 1970s when space-borne coronagraphs revealed that eruptions of plasma are ejected from the Sun. Today, it is known that the Sun produces eruptive flares, filament eruptions, coronal mass ejections and failed eruptions; all thought to be due to a release of energy stored in the coronal magnetic field during its drastic reconfiguration. This review discusses the observations and physical mechanisms behind this eruptive activity, with a view to making an assessment of the current capability of forecasting these events for space weather risk and impact mitigation. Whilst a wealth of observations exist, and detailed models have been developed, there still exists a need to draw these approaches together. In particular more realistic models are encouraged in order to asses the full range of complexity of the solar atmosphere and the criteria for which an eruption is formed. From the observational side, a more detailed understanding of the role of photospheric flows and reconnection is needed in order to identify the evolutionary path that ultimately means a magnetic structure will erupt

Origin and ion charge state evolution of solar wind transients during 4 - 7 August 2011

This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 647214). The computational work for this article was carried out on the joint STFC and SFC (SRIF) funded clusters at the University of St Andrews (Scotland, UK). The work is partially supported by RFBR grants 17-02-00787, 14-02-00945 and the P7 Program of the Russian Academy of Sciences.We present a study of the complex event consisting of several solar wind transients detected by the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) on 4 - 7 August 2011, which caused a geomagnetic storm with Dst=-110 nT. The supposed coronal sources, three flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), occurred on 2 - 4 August 2011 in active region (AR) 11261. To investigate the solar origin and formation of these transients, we study the kinematic and thermodynamic properties of the expanding coronal structures using the Solar Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (SDO/AIA) EUV images and differential emission measure (DEM) diagnostics. The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) magnetic field maps were used as the input data for the 3D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model to describe the flux rope ejection (Pagano, Mackay, and Poedts, 2013b). We characterize the early phase of the flux rope ejection in the corona, where the usual three-component CME structure formed. The fluxrope was ejected with a speed of about 200 km s-1 to the height of 0.25 R⊙. The kinematics of the modeled CME front agrees well with the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) EUV measurements. Using the results of the plasma diagnostics and MHD modeling, we calculate the ion charge ratios of carbon and oxygen as well as the mean charge state of iron ions of the 2 August 2011 CME, taking into account the processes of heating, cooling, expansion, ionization, and recombination of the moving plasma in the corona up to the frozen-in region. We estimate a probable heating rate of the CME plasma in the low corona by matching the calculated ion composition parameters of the CME with those measured in situ for the solar wind transients. We also consider the similarities and discrepancies between the results of the MHD simulation and the observations.PostprintPeer reviewe

Stellar coronal response to differential rotation and flux emergence

We perform a numerical parameter study to determine what effect varying differential rotation and flux emergence has on a star's non-potential coronal magnetic field. In particular we consider the effects on the star's surface magnetic flux, open magnetic flux, mean azimuthal field strength, coronal free magnetic energy, coronal heating and flux rope eruptions. To do this, we apply a magnetic flux transport model to describe the photospheric evolution, and couple this to the non-potential coronal evolution using a magnetofrictional technique. A flux emergence model is applied to add new magnetic flux on to the photosphere and into the corona. The parameters of this flux emergence model are derived from the solar flux emergence profile, however the rate of emergence can be increased to represent higher flux emergence rates than the Sun's. Overall we find that flux emergence has a greater effect on the non-potential coronal properties compared to differential rotation, with all the aforementioned properties increasing with increasing flux emergence rate. Although differential rotation has a lesser effect on the overall coronal properties compared to flux emergence, varying differential rotation does alter the coronal structure. As the differential rotation rate increases, the corona becomes more open, and more non-potential

Flare-CME Models: An Observational Perspective (Invited Review)

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Euclid. I. Overview of the Euclid mission

International audienceThe current standard model of cosmology successfully describes a variety of measurements, but the nature of its main ingredients, dark matter and dark energy, remains unknown. Euclid is a medium-class mission in the Cosmic Vision 2015-2025 programme of the European Space Agency (ESA) that will provide high-resolution optical imaging, as well as near-infrared imaging and spectroscopy, over about 14,000 deg^2 of extragalactic sky. In addition to accurate weak lensing and clustering measurements that probe structure formation over half of the age of the Universe, its primary probes for cosmology, these exquisite data will enable a wide range of science. This paper provides a high-level overview of the mission, summarising the survey characteristics, the various data-processing steps, and data products. We also highlight the main science objectives and expected performance