Research Highlights

Breno Raphaldini, Mausumi Dikpati, Scott W. McIntosh, and Andre S. W. Teruya, utilize 3 years of global, synchronous observations of coronal bright point densities to obtain empirical signatures of dispersion relations that can be attributed to the simulated waves in tachocline. By tracking the bright point densities at selected latitudes, they compute their wave-number X frequency spectra. 

Yuhong Fan, Maria Kazachenko, Andrei Afanasev, and George Fisher present a boundary data-driven magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulation of the 2011-02-15 coronal mass ejection (CME) event of Active Region (AR) NOAA 11158. The simulation is driven at the lower boundary with an electric field derived from the normal magnetic field and the vertical electric current measured from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Helioseismic Magnetic Imager (HMI) vector magnetograms. 

Zihao Yang, Hui Tian, Steven Tomczyk, Xianyu Liu, Sarah Gibson, Richard Morton, Cooper Downs, using the Upgraded Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter, have obtained magnetograms of the global corona above the solar limb over approximately eight months.

Breno Raphaldini, Mausumi Dikpati, Andre S. W. Teruya , Kiran Jain, Aimee A. Norton , and Scott W. McIntosh investigate the circumstances under which two of the most flare-prolific active regions of solar cycle 25, namely ARs 13590 and 13514, flared. 

Dong Lin, Wenbin Wang, Mei-Ching Fok, Kevin Pham, Jia Yue, and Haonan Wu, utilize first-principles inner magnetosphere model and ionosphere-thermosphere model to illustrate the thermodynamic coupling effects between the topside ionosphere and the magnetosphere, and compare the relative significance between the heat flux and plasma convection due to electrodynamic coupling. 

Raveena Khan, Sarah Gibson, Roberto Casini, and K. Nagaraju utilize 3D 'Magneto-hydrodynamic Algorithm outside a Sphere' (MAS) models as input to the FORWARD code to model polarization in Ne viii line produced due to resonance scattering, and interpret its modification due to collisions and the magnetic fields through the Hanle effect. 

P. Judge and N.P.M. Kuin ask why and how are entire hydromagnetic structures only intermittently loaded with bright coronal plasma in the Sun? Their findings consolidate the claim that unobserved physical processes are at work which govern the heating of long-lived coronal loops.

R. Casini, A. G. de Wijn, P. G. Judge analyze (Published 2012 September 4) the generation of polarization cross-talk in Stokes polarimeters by atmospheric seeing, and its effects on the noise statistics of spectropolarimetric measurements for both single-beam and dual-beam instruments.

Sarah Gibson et. al. present a numerical study that combines magnetohydrodynamic simulations of turbulence together with forward-modeling synthesis of white- light data via the FORWARD code. Their study is a first step in the process of analyzing and understanding the unprecedented information that The Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) will provide.