Physics Department News

The clearest and most detailed images of the Sun have been captured by the largest telescope in the world. Just-released first images and videos from the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope reveal unprecedented detail of the Sun’s surface, with experts saying it will enable a new era of solar science and a leap forward in understanding the Sun and its impacts on our planet.

Members of the Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics at the University of Warwick are part of a UK consortium, led by Queen’s University Belfast, that developed and supplied the cameras used to takes the images. Funding has been provided by UK Research and Innovation’s Science and Technology Facilities Council.

The Inouye Solar Telescope provides a view of the Sun’s atmosphere that is ground-breaking. The dynamics of the solar surface are revealed at an unparalleled level of quality and detail. The telescope will provide the ladder for a step change in our understanding of how the Sun’s activity manifests itself through flares and eruptions, as well as the flow of energy and matter into the Sun’s corona. The telescope will also play a critical role in understanding space weather.

More information can be found at https://www.nso.edu/inouye-solar-telescope-first-light/ and https://www.nsf.gov/solarscience.

Image credit: NSO/NSF/AURA

A ‘great’ space weather super-storm large enough to cause significant disruption to our electronic and networked systems occurred on average once in every 25 years.This result was made possible by a new way of analysing historical data from the last 14 solar cycles, long before high quality observations became available in the space age since 1957. The analysis shows that ‘severe’ magnetic storms occurred in 42 out of the last 150 years, and ‘great’ super-storms occurred in 6 years out of 150. Super-storms can cause power blackouts, take out satellites, disrupt aviation and cause temporary loss of GPS signals and radio communications.

Chapman, Horne, Watkins, Using the aa index over the last 14 solar cycles to characterize extreme geomagnetic activity is published in Geophysical Research Letters

Torsional Alfvén waves are promising candidates for transporting energy from the solar surface into the corona and have been theoretically predicted for decades. However, their detection is notoriously difficult and so far has mostly relied on indirect signatures.

Imaging and spectral data from the space-based IRIS observatory has been used to study a surge of cool solar plasma in the corona above the East limb of the Sun. The surge has been triggered by the magnetic reconnection of open and closed magnetic fields. Using imaging and spectral information the tell-tale torsional signatures of plasma rotation of alternating sense have been revealed.

This discovery was made by scientists from the University of Warwick's Physics Department and the University of Oslo's Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics and has been published this month as a letter in the journal of Astronomy and Astrophysics. This study provides the first direct observational evidence that magnetic reconnection leads to the generation of large-scale torsional Alfvén waves in the solar corona.

Petra Kohutova, Erwin Verwichte, and Clara Froment 2020, A&A, 633, L6

Marin Alexe of the Functional Electronic Materials group has received a prestigious Humboldt Research Award, recognising the breadth and depth of his research career in Condensed Matter Physics. Marin will work with academics in Germany to undertake research projects at the Martin Luther University, Halle/Saale and Technical University, Darmstadt.

Further information can be found at http://www.humboldt-foundation.de/web/programmes-by-target-group.html