Revealing the pattern of solar Alfvenic waves
The Sun’s atmosphere is known to be replete with magnetohydrodynamic waves and there is significant attention on trying to understand the Alfvenic fluctuations in particular. This is because the Alfvenic waves are a prime candidate to transfer Poynting flux into the corona and solar wind. While their journey from photosphere to solar wind has been sketched out in various theoretical models over the years, there has been scant confirmation of many of the details. In this talk I will discuss various aspects of the Alfvenic waves journey through the solar atmosphere (at least until the low corona) and how we are now beginning to deliver observational-based constraints for the wave models. I will focus on the role of observations in the infrared, placing past results from CoMP in context and demonstrating glimpses of what Cryo-NIRSP is also able to reveal about the Alfvenic waves.
Richard Morton is an Associate Professor at Northumbria and hold a UKRI Future Leader Fellowship. He obtained his PhD in 2012 from the University of Sheffield and moved to Northumbria shortly after as a University Research Fellow. In 2014 he obtained a Leverhulme Trust Early Career Research Fellowship.
He currently lead a small research group (inc. Post-doctoral researcher, PhD & masters students) who are motivated to understand the role magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves play in transferring energy through the Sun’s atmosphere, powering the heating of the million-degree solar wind and its acceleration to a million miles per hour. His contribution to the field of Solar Physics has been recognised with the award of the Royal Astronomical Society's Winton Capital prize 2015 and Fowler Award (2021) .
Richard is enthusiastic about outreach and has recently completed a successful project called ‘Imagining the Sun’ (STFC funded), working with schools, education authorities, artists and poets, to deliver a combined science and art programme.