Project Grant 2206424

This three-year Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) provides $150,000 to the New Jersey Institute of Technology to advance understanding of coronal heating mechanisms in the Sun. Through a combination of multi-wavelength microwave imaging observations from the Extended Owens Valley Solar Array and 3D numerical simulations, the grantee will examine the coupling of thermal and magnetic structures between solar active regions and the corona. Specific deliverables include quantifying the 3D structure of coronal magnetic fields, developing maps combining thermal plasma observations with coronal field data for validation, constraining scaling laws to investigate coronal heating mechanisms, and examining how magnetic energy is accumulated and evolves in active regions. The grantee will employ automated modeling, nonlinear force-free field codes, and simulation tools to achieve these goals and engage students. Outcomes from this research aim to tackle fundamental problems in solar physics within the program's scope of expanding knowledge of the integrated Earth system.