Solar Wind Formation In The Corona

Abstract

Space weather in the solar system is essential to understand for future space travel as well as protecting the Earth. Space weather is determined by the solar wind and transient events such as Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) which originate in the solar corona, or outer atmosphere of the Sun. The corona is one of the most challenging regions of the Sun to observe due to its proximity to the exceptionally bright solar photosphere. Thus, observing the corona requires special methods to isolate emission from it. One of the best ways, at present, to study the solar corona is with Total Solar Eclipses (TSEs), when the Moon perfectly blocks out light from the photosphere. To further our understanding of the corona and the formation of the solar wind, this dissertation performed a number of novel analyses using data acquired during TSEs. A decent amount of the work entailed characterizing and calibrating narrowband telescopes used to observe line emission in the corona, as well as operating the equipment on-site during the 2016, 2017 and 2019 TSEs. With this type of narrowband data, I measured the freeze-in distances of Fe10+ and Fe13+ throughout the corona for the first time, finding that the freeze-in distances varied depending on the morphology in the corona, and both ions did not freeze-in at the same distance along the same magnetic field line structure. I then inferred the electron temperature (Te) in the corona at multiple sites across the path of totality at the 2017 TSE, which was found to change substantially in 28 minutes due to the passage of a serendipitous CME during the eclipse. Finally, I used the last two decades of TSE broadband white-light data to observationally quantify the topology of the coronal magnetic field between 1 and 6 R⊙ over two solar cycles for the first time. These magnetic field results have broad implications for coronal modeling and the nature of the Sun’s magnetic cycle in the corona.