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MAGHEAT: understanding energy deposition in the solar chromosphere

Project description

Shedding new light on the multiple mechanisms heating the chromosphere

The Sun’s complex structure is not evident in the visible ‘surface’ (the photosphere). Beneath the photosphere is the core, where nuclear fusion occurs, and over it are the solar chromosphere, a thin region of solar atmosphere, and the corona. The mechanisms by which heat flows from the core to the solar chromosphere and corona and that drive the solar dynamo (the plasma flows related to this heat flux and to generation of the Sun’s magnetic field) are largely unknown. Funded by the European Research Council, the MAGHEAT project will identify the separate mechanisms heating the chromosphere with very high resolution integrating observational data and newly developed 3D empirical models of the photosphere and chromosphere.

Objective

The mechanisms that heat the solar chromosphere and corona, and that drive the solar dynamo, arguably remain some of the foremost questions in solar and stellar physics. Here, we focus on the question of how energy is transported and released in the solar chromosphere. During the past 20 years, numerical simulations of the chromosphere have been used, with increasing degree of sophistication, to validate various proposed heating mechanisms. These studies have gradually come to recognise that the mechanisms that are likely dominant may be different in different parts of chromospheric fine structures. To make progress, we therefore need constraints from highly resolved observational data.

Recently, I implemented an inversion code that allows estimates of the overall chromospheric heating from spatially and spectrally resolved observational maps. Our results have unveiled very finely structured heating distributions with much larger amplitudes than the hitherto assumed canonical values. But a limitation is that this implementation cannot directly discriminate between the different heating mechanisms that have been proposed.

The goal of MAGHEAT is to identify what mechanisms are heating the chromosphere, characterize the energy flux that is being released into the chromosphere and separate the contribution from each mechanism in active regions and flares. This goal is achievable with the combination of the proposed development of novel non-LTE inversion methods, new hybrid rMHD/particle simulations, and the availability of datasets with unprecedented high spatial resolution, large field-of-view, and high S/N ratio from DKIST, the Sunrise III mission, NASA’s IRIS satellite and updated instrumentation at the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope. We will use observational data from these facilities to reconstruct new 3D empirical models of the photosphere and chromosphere, which will allow us to identify the mechanisms that are responsible for the energy deposition.

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HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2022-COG

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Host institution

STOCKHOLMS UNIVERSITET
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 994 937,50
Address
UNIVERSITETSVAGEN 10
10691 Stockholm
Sweden

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Region
Östra Sverige Stockholm Stockholms län
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 994 937,50

Beneficiaries (1)

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