Toward a Better Understanding of the Solar Atmosphere: Combining Observations and Numerical Modeling
Abstract
The study of the Sun, our nearest star, is making rapid progress, through a combination of a host of new space-based and ground-based observatories coming online and major advances in numerical simulations that incorporate increasingly complex physical mechanisms. I will provide an overview of some recent exciting discoveries that highlight the synergy between numerical modeling and observations with the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and Hinode spacecraft. Some of the topics I will discuss include: 1. recent advances in understanding the dominant heating mechanism(s) of the solar atmosphere focusing on dissipation of Alfven waves, as well as the presence of non-thermal particles in small heating events resulting from magnetic reconnection; 2. heating and reconnection in the partially ionized chromosphere; 3. the origin of the slow solar wind; 4. the global nature and long-distance connections governing the instability of the solar atmosphere and driving eruptions such as coronal mass ejections.
- Publication:
-
AAS/AGU Triennial Earth-Sun Summit
- Pub Date:
- April 2015
- Bibcode:
- 2015TESS....110001D