Magnetic fields in the sun's outer atmosphere -- the corona -- control both
solar-wind acceleration and the dynamics of solar eruptions. We present the
first clear observational evidence of coronal magnetic nulls in off-limb
linearly polarized observations of pseudostreamers, taken by the Coronal
Multichannel Polarimeter (CoMP) telescope. These nulls represent regions where
magnetic reconnection is likely to act as a catalyst for solar activity. CoMP
linear-polarization observations also provide an independent, coronal proxy for
magnetic expansion into the solar wind, a quantity often used to parameterize
and predict the solar wind speed at Earth. We introduce a new method for
explicitly calculating expansion factors from CoMP coronal linear-polarization
observations, which does not require photospheric extrapolations. We conclude
that linearly-polarized light is a powerful new diagnostic of critical coronal
magnetic topologies and the expanding magnetic flux tubes that channel the
solar wind
