IV: Science investigation

1
IV Science investigation

• Key Observables
• Flux emergence and transport (both HMI and AIA)
• Magnetic connections among different areas
  (coronal emission by AIA, helped by views from
  different perspectives by STEREO/EUVI, magnetic
  extrapolation on HMI) and their changes
• Estimate/calculate magnetic field-related
  quantities, such as magnetic free energy,
  helicity, vertical currents, and flux imbalance,
  of regions of interest (basically HMI)
• Infer coronal magnetic field topology (magnetic
  field extrapolation aided by observations of
  coronal loops, HMI and AIA), within and beyond
  active regions, in comparison with various model
  predictions
• Estimate/calculate energy loss due to
  non-explosive reconnection, perhaps as
  indications of slow reconnection which may lead
  to explosive reconnection (AIA, XRT)

2
IV Science investigation

• Key Observables (Cont)
• First signatures of transients in the low corona,
  either continued from gradual evolution or
  happening within AIA cadence (AIA, XRT, GBO)
• Manifestations of transients in the low corona,
  such as dimming, ejections, waves, flares (AIA,
  XRT, GBO)
• Changes of magnetic field associated with flares
  and CMEs (HMI)
• Diagnosing regions of explosive magnetic
  reconnection with inflows and outflows (AIA)

3
V Implementation general

• What do we need to make progress on the science
  questions in general?
• Collect outcomes from individual projects funded
  by programs like SRT, TRT, GI, SHINE, NSWP,
  etc. They are not necessarily found in
  literature in a timely fashion.
• Publish brief "Science Nuggets" both on a main
  Web page and in the form of short monthly e-mail
  notices
• Hold frequent workshops, possibly joint with
  other scheduled meetings
• Create working groups, consisting of 5-10
  members, within the SDO team who are actively
  engaged in focused science questions or analysis
  of particular events (such as top 10 major
  geomagnetic storms in cycle 23), as part of
  already funded programs. Mixture of observers
  and theorists is always desirable.

4
V Implementation general

• What do we need to make progress on the science
  questions in general? (Cont.)
• Associate scientific investigations on solar
  transients with space weather and NASAs
  exploration initiatives. Use international
  efforts like IHY, ILWS, etc. to request more
  funding for interdisciplinary research. Joint
  with the AIA Geospace team.
• The best way may be for us to attend foreign
  meetings, and also to have sessions on SDO at IHY
  and other meetings.
• We might want to have some specific team members
  who are assigned to be on organizing committees,
  and have them coordinate their efforts with the
  SDO science team leadership
• Work with modelers and redefine observables to
  distinguish the proposed models for CME
  initiation. Models will take into account a more
  realistic term of the energy.
• Coordinated observations and data analysis with
  Solar-B and STEREO

5
VI Implementation AIAHMI

• What do we need from and for SDO to make progress
  on our major science?
• The default synoptic observations (full-disk
  images at 10 s cadence) serve most of the
  observables discussed for transients, as far as
  AIA is concerned.
• For certain purposes, such as finding conjugate
  foot-points of flare loops, we will need higher
  cadence.
• Insertion of non full-disk images should be done
  with minimum impact on the synoptic observations.
• Automatic exposure control (AEC) can kill
  observations of large-scale structures (relevant
  to CMEs).
• High cadence (non-full disk) and AEC images
  should be limited to fewer filters (e.g., 131,
  171, 193 and 304A.)

6
VI Implementation AIAHMI

• What do we need from and for SDO to make progress
  on our major science (Cont.) ?
• Quick look movies, both in raw and difference
  images, would be very useful for identifying
  events to be studied in depth. There should be a
  tool to make similar movies later using fully
  calibrated data.
• Event lists for dimming, ejections, waves, loop
  oscillations should be automatically produced,
  first on a real-time basis, later superseded by
  calibrated data as they become available.
• There should be a systematic validation scheme
  for magnetic field extrapolations to match
  coronal emission patterns. Right now, we seem to
  rely on our general visual inspection.
• Expected coronal responses from representative
  flare/CME models (in crude forms and with
  continued improvement), easily comparable to AIA
  images (such tools may exist for RHESSI).

7
VII AIA (HMIEVE) data products

• list data products differentiate critical,
  desirable, useful
• Full disk movies (raw running/base difference)
  with reduced cadence and spatial sampling for
  quick look purposes but that should be run on any
  computer platforms. Critical.
• These should be 4x4 averaged, so they end up
  being 1Kx1K images.
• Movie maker tool to allow the user to make
  customized movies. The customization includes
  selection of wavelengths (not only AIA but also
  HMI magnetograms), pixel summation / FOV, whether
  to track a region with solar rotation, etc.
  Critical
• Event lists that contain links to raw data and
  related movies. Desirable
• The catalog can be a Wiki, where anyone could add
  comments. Might be some protections needed, but
  if we keep the list decoupled from the actual
  data, it would be fairly safe.

8
VII AIA (HMIEVE) data products

• list data products differentiate critical,
  desirable, useful (Cont.)
• Frequently updated synoptic magnetograms from HMI
  for magnetic field extrapolations. Critical
• Browser combining SDO and other data. Both real
  time and archive. Desirable

9
VIII AIA (HMIEVE) data production

• Assessment of required resources/codes/etc
• No discussion at the session
• pipeline software
• analysis software/studies
• supporting software/models
• computational requirements (run time estimates,
  system requirements, )
• storage requirements size, duration,
• access web, archive, logs, search methods,

10
IX Business plan Resources

• What data and codes must we have to make SDO a
  success (at pipeline, supporting, and research
  levels)? Who will provide the required codes?
• As emphasized above, it is essential to be able
  to look at data efficiently with various movies,
  which should be generated both at pipeline and by
  the user. Lists of automatically detected
  features are also useful.
• It is very important to have summary pages of
  AIA/HMI observations in comparison with
  heliospheric/magnetosphetric data as initiated,
  e.g., in the SolarSofts latest event pages.
  Ideally, the software will be developed by a team
  that consists of a few representatives or
  software people from each of the missions (AIA,
  HMI, SECCHI, XRT, IMPACT, etc.) Often same
  people represent different missions.

11
IX Business plan Resources

• What data and codes must we have to make SDO a
  success (at pipeline, supporting, and research
  levels)? Who will provide the required codes?
  (Cont.)
• Apart from magnetic field extrapolations based on
  HMI and simulated emission patterns in the
  corona, we should probably ask the CME modelers
  to refine their models, and to predict low
  coronal observations at early stages of CMEs for
  given parameters for the drivers. Once we
  understand more clearly how the models work, some
  SolarSoft experts can turn them to software with
  easy user interface so that we can compare model
  predictions with observations. We use SHINE,
  LWS-related workshops and similar programs to
  promote interactions with the modelers

12
X Business plan Implementation

• Define key milestones, test procedures, and
  target dates,
• it would be most productive if we understand the
  low coronal phenomena in terms of theory and know
  how certain it is. Following the first
  comparison (SHINE 2000/2001) of models with
  observations for CME initiation in cycle 23, we
  need to critically review what have been done so
  far and what need to be done. Perhaps use future
  SHINE meetings or the LWS workshop 2007?
• Communication define or list meetings, topical
  sessions, etc., where progress can be presented,
  discussed, evaluated,
• Joint SDO Solar-B meeting on magnetic
  reconnection? Other space weather-related
  meetings.