Solar flares and coronal mass ejections (cmes) originate in the low corona and are thought to be powered by the release of magnetic energy stored in electric currents flowing through the coronal…

This is a $385,622.42 grant awarded by NASA to the University of California, Berkeley to conduct research on solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). The research aims to model the development and evolution of coronal magnetic structure using the RADMHD code, with the model photospheric magnetic field vectors matching the observed data from NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory. The research will compare the simulated emission from the model to observational data from NASA missions such as the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph, and the X-Ray Telescope. The grant does not have a set-aside designation and was awarded on March 17, 2016 with a completion date of August 13, 2019.

Solar flares and coronal mass ejections (cmes) originate in the low corona and are thought to be powered by the release of magnetic energy stored in electric currents flowing through the coronal plasma. How do these currents arise, how do they evolve, and what triggers their dissipation? Coronal fields are anchored at the photosphere, so any evolution of the photospheric magnetic field will induce evolution of the coronal field. Consequently, the better a model of the solar atmosphere can incorporate these photospheric changes, the better chance IT has to accurately model the coronal magnetic evolution. We propose to dynamically model the development and evolution of coronal magnetic structure using the radmhd code driven such that the model photospheric magnetic field vectors match the observed photospheric magnetic field vectors, as measured by the helioseismic and magnetic imager (HMI) aboard the solar dynamics observatory (SDO). We will compare the simulated emission resulting from the model's coronal evolution to observational data from NASA missions such as the atmospheric imaging assembly (AIA), the interface region imaging spectrograph (iris) and the x-RAY telescope (XRT). In addition to investigating the questions posed above, other key science questions that we plan to address include: what is the coronal response to changes in vertical electric currents at the photosphere? Currents can be carried into the corona as flux emerges or can be induced by displacements in the photospheric footpoints of alreadyemerged fields. Does one mode of energy input dominate?