Solar and Magnetospheric Plasma Theory

The Sun's magnetic field whips the solar atmosphere into a 2-million-degree plasma, and this group wants to understand exactly how that happens. This research tackles a set of linked puzzles about how magnetised plasma behaves in the Sun’s atmosphere and Earth’s magnetosphere. The biggest gap is explaining why the Sun’s corona is hundreds of times hotter than its surface—a problem that has resisted solution for decades. The group will also study magnetic reconnection, the process that powers solar flares and coronal mass ejections, and use waves in the corona to infer otherwise invisible plasma properties, a technique called coronal seismology. This is fundamental plasma physics. It has no immediate practical application. But the Sun’s magnetic storms can disrupt satellites, power grids, and radio communications on Earth. A better theoretical grasp of how these storms form and accelerate particles could eventually improve space-weather forecasting. The work on magnetospheric waves also directly explains how electrons get accelerated to create the aurora—a visible consequence of the same physics that can damage spacecraft electronics.