High-Resolution Solar Magnetography from Space:

Beyond Solar-B

Science Definition Workshop

 

3-5 April 2001

 

Room 2096

National Space Science and Technology Center

University of Alabama in Huntsville

320 Sparkman Drive

 

Hosted by

NASA/Marshall Space Flight Center

and

University of Alabama in Huntsville

 

The final report on the workshop is available as a 6.5MB pdf file here.

The final report on the workshop is available as a 9.5MB MSWord file here.

 Background and Purpose:

 The MSFC solar physics group was active in the definition and promotion of the Japan/US/UK Solar-B Mission.  Now that Solar-B is “under construction” it is time to begin to think about the science problems that the next high-resolution magnetography mission should address.  The Huntsville solar group, with the encouragement of NASA Headquarters, undertook the initiative to organize a Workshop that brought together solar scientists who represent this segment of the solar physics community.  Our chief aim was to reach consensus on the main science goals for space-based high-resolution solar magnetography beyond 2010.  This process was begun by NASA’s Sun-Earth Connection Roadmap exercise last year, but much more needs to be done.  The topic needed to be revisited in light of NASA’s new initiative, Living With a Star (LWS), and in light of the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST) being spearheaded by NSO.

 

The title of the Workshop was “High-Resolution Solar Magnetography from Space: Beyond Solar-B.”  The focus was on the interplay between solar convection and the magnetic field in and near the photosphere.  The basic purpose was to identify (1) the science problems that will likely remain unsolved at the end of the decade, and (2) the improvements in high-resolution measurements of magnetic fields and magnetoconvection that are needed to open inroads into these problems.  The purpose of the Workshop was not to define the next high-resolution solar magnetography mission, but rather to define the scientific questions that such a mission will have to address.  Thus the outcome of the Workshop lays the foundation for the mission study, which will come later.

 

 

Scientific Organizing Committee (SOC):

Tom Berger (Lockheed Martin) Dana Longcope (Montana State U.)
Tom Bogdan (HAO)   Ron Moore (MSFC/NSSTC) (Co-Chair) 
John Davis (MSFC/NSSTC) (Co-Chair) Doug Rabin (GSFC)
David Hathaway (MSFC/NSSTC) Ted Tarbell (Lockheed Martin)
Christoph Keller (NSO)   Aad Van Ballegooijen (CfA)
Jim Klimchuk (NRL) Haimin Wang (NJIT/BBSO)
Barry LaBonte (U. Hawaii)  

Design of the Workshop:

 1.      What is the science problem and why is it important? (Relate topic to big questions and broader topics such as coronal heating, flares/CMEs, luminosity modulation, helioseismology, etc.)

2.      What do we know now? (Recent progress; why the topic is hot.)

3.      What should we expect to learn from Solar-B and ATST?

4.      What high-resolution observations will be needed from space that Solar-B and ATST cannot do?

 

The SOC settled on 18 hot topics to be addressed by the Workshop.  Thanks to the recruiting efforts by all of the SOC members, we had excellent speakers for each topic.  In addition, there were two Workshop Summary talks, one by a theorist/modeler (Karel Schrijver) and the other by an instrumentalist/observer (Christoph Keller).

The Workshop was held at the new home of the MSFC solar group, in the National Space Science and Technology Center (NSSTC) on the UAH campus, Huntsville, Alabama.  The Workshop met in Room 2096 and ran for two and a half days, April 3-5 (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday), with the following agenda :

Some of the talks are available here as pdf files. You will need Adobe Acrobat 4.0 or higher to read these files. The Adobe Acrobat 5.0 Reader is available for free at Adobe Acrobat.

 AGENDA  

 Tuesday April 3

 

7:30 – 8:15     Registration; Coffee, Juice, & Pastries

8:15 – 8:40     Introduction (John Davis/Ron Moore)

 

1st Session     8:40 – 10:00     Chair: David Hathaway

8:40 – 9:20     Topic: High resolution observatories in the coming decade

8:40 – 9:05     Talk by Ted Tarbell (Lockheed Martin)

9:05 – 9:20     Discussion

9:20 – 10:00     Topic: Spectrum of convection

9:20 – 9:45     Talk by Bob Stein (Michigan State U.)

9:45 – 10:00     Discussion

Coffee Break     10:00 – 10:20

 

2nd Session     10:20 – 12:20     Chair: Christoph Keller

10:20 – 11:00     Topic: P-mode generation by convective collapse

10:20 – 10:45     Talk by Phil Goode (NJIT/BBSO)

10:45 – 11:00     Discussion

11:00 – 11:40     Topic: Intranetwork magnetic fields

11:00 – 11:25     Talk by Rob Rutten (U. Utrecht)

11:25 – 11:40     Discussion

11:40 – 12:20     Topic: Small-scale dynamos

11:40 – 12:05     Talk by Thierry Emonet (U. Chicago)

12:05 – 12:20     Discussion

Lunch Break     12:20 – 1:40

 

3rd Session     1:40 – 3:00     Chair: Tom Bogdan

1:40 – 2:20     Topic: Sunspots

1:40 – 2:05     Talk by Bala Balasubramaniam (NSO)

2:05 – 2:20     Discussion

2:20 – 3:00     Topic: Elementary flux tubes and the Sun’s luminosity

2:20 – 2:45     Talk by Jo Bruls (KIS-Freiburg)

2:45 – 3:00     Discussion

Coffee Break     3:00 – 3:20

 

4th Session     3:20 – 4:40     Chair: Ted Tarbell

3:20 – 4:00     Topic: Emergence and disappearance of magnetic flux

3:20 – 3:45     Talk by KD Leka (Colorado Research Assoc./NWRA)

3:45 – 4:00     Discussion

4:00 – 4:40     Topic: Magnetic carpet

4:00 – 4:25     Talk prepared by Alan Title, presented by Tom Berger (Lockheed Martin)

4:25 – 4:40     Discussion

Break     4:40 – 5:00

 

5th Session     5:00 – 6:00     Chair: Ron Moore

Social hour with refreshments;

Contributed presentations: Brief (“one viewgraph”) talks/poster plugs; movies; poster viewing

 

7:00 – 9:00     Workshop banquet at Cafe Paris (nice restaurant in Huntsville)

(price: $50, alcoholic beverages not included)

 

Wednesday April 4

 

8:00 – 8:30     Coffee, Juice, Pastries

6th Session     8:30 – 9:50     Chair: Aad Van Ballegooijen

8:30 – 9:10     Topic: Elementary flux tubes and coronal heating

8:30 – 8:55     Talk by Han Uitenbroek (NS0)

8:55 – 9:10     Discussion

9:10 – 9:50     Topic: Transition-region moss

9:10 – 9:35     Talk by Tom Berger (Lockheed Martin)

9:35 – 9:50     Discussion

Coffee Break     9:50 – 10:10

 

7th Session     10:10 – 12:10     Chair: Rob Rutten and Haimin Wang

10:10 – 10:50     Topic: Explosive events in the magnetic network

10:10 – 10:35     Talk prepared by Jongchul Chae, presented by Haimin Wang (NJIT/BBSO)

10:35 – 10:50     Discussion

10:50 – 11:30     Topic: Magnetic nulls

10:50 – 11:15     Talk by Dana Longcope (Montana State U.)

11:15 – 11:30     Discussion

11:30 – 12:10     Topic: Magnetic helicity

11:30 – 11:55     Talk by Alexei Pevtsov (NSO)

11:55 – 12:10     Discussion

Lunch Break     12:10 – 1:40

 

8th Session     1:40 – 3:00     Chair: Alphonse Sterling

1:40 – 2:20     Topic: Sheared magnetic fields, filaments, flares, and  CMEs

1:40 – 2:05     Talk by Terry Forbes (U. New Hampshire)

2:05 – 2:20     Discussion

2:20 – 3:00     Topic: Magnetography in the chromosphere and transition region

2:20 – 2:45     Talk by Doug Rabin (GSFC)

2:45 – 3:00     Discussion

Coffee Break     3:00 – 3:20

 

9th Session     3:20 – 4:40     Chair: Jim Klimchuk

3:20 – 4:00     Topic: IR coronal magnetography

3:20 – 3:45     Talk by Haosheng Lin (U. Hawaii)

3:45 – 4:00     Discussion

4:00 – 4:40     Topic: Magnetic field extrapolation

4:00 – 4:25     Talk by Peter Sturrock (Stanford U.)

4:25 – 4:40     Discussion

Break     4:40 – 5:00

 

10th Session     5:00 – 6:00     Chair: Ron Moore

Social hour with refreshments;

Contributed presentations: Brief (“one viewgraph”) talks/poster plugs; movies; poster viewing

 

Thursday April 5

 

8:00 – 8:30     Coffee, Juice, Pastries

11th Session     8:30 – 10:00     Chair: Ron Moore

8:30 – 9:15     Summary of Workshop from viewpoint of theory & modeling

8:30 – 9:00     Talk by Karel Schrijver (Lockheed Martin)

9:00 – 9:15     Discussion

9:15 – 10:00     Summary of Workshop from viewpoint of instruments & observations

9:15 – 9:45     Talk by Christoph Keller (NSO)

9:45 – 10:00     Discussion

Coffee Break     10:00 – 10:15

 

12th Session     10:15 – 12:00     Chair: Ron Moore

First cut at reaching consensus: discussion of answers to generic questions of Workshop    

The talks will not be turned into papers published in a proceedings of the Workshop.  Instead, the main product will be a summary of the Workshop that gives the consensus of the Workshop participants on the answers to the four generic questions, answers based on and distilled from the talks and discussions of our 18 topics.  In addition to a few-page narrative executive summary, this report will include for each invited talk an abstract plus a figure (chart/image) that together convey the essence of the talk.  This report of the Workshop from the SOC will be a basic input to the next Sun-Earth Connection Roadmap exercise, in about two years from now.