2025年秋季英文授课 - Solar Physics

Description

The Sun, the massive object that dominates the solar system and helps to support life on Earth, is also the driver of physical processes in the space environment between the Sun and the Earth, known as space weather. The practical importance of space weather is to mitigate its adverse effects on critical human technological systems, including satellites, their payloads and astronauts, communications, navigations, power grids, etc. This course is focused on the fundamentals as well as the recent progress in solar physics, to prepare graduate students for the space research in general. It includes the basic physical processes governing the formation of the solar interior and atmosphere, the solar magnetic field and configuration, the physical bases of flares and coronal mass ejections, and particle acceleration mechanisms. This introductory course is intended for graduate students and upper-level undergraduate students with academic background in physics/astrophysics. This course spans 40 class hours and merits 2 credits.

Grading

• Homework (30%): to reinforce the understanding of basic physical concepts. Students who fail to turn in the their work on time will face a penalty --- a 0.9 factor is applied to the score for each day late, i.e., your score = nominal score x (0.9)ⁿ, n being the numer of days delayed.

• Project (30%): three projects based on data analysis and numerical models to get some hands-on experience.

• Presentation (15%): relevant research articles will be assigned for further readings. Each enrolled student is expected to give one presentation based on, but not limited strictly to, these assigned articles. Each presentation will last about 15 minutes, including 3-min Q&A.

• Final test (20%): an open-book test for physical concepts and intuition.

• Participation (5%): class attendence; raising/answering questions in class.

Text Book

“Physics of the Sun: A First Course" by Dermott J. Mullan (CRC Press, 2nd edtion, 2022)

References

• "Eruptions on the Sun" by Boris Fillipov, Springer, 2024

• 太阳磁学（张洪起），科学出版社，2024

• 太阳磁流体力学（毛信杰），科学出版社，2023

• "The Sun as a Guide to Stellar Physics" edited by Oddbjorn Engvold, Jean-Claude Vial, and Andrew Skumanich,  Elsevier, 2019

• "Magnetohydrodynamics of the Sun" by E.R. Priest, Cambridge University Press, 2014
  

• "The Sun: An Introduction" by M. Stix, Springer, 2nd Edition, 2002

• "Solar Astrophysics" by P. V. Foukal, Wiley-VCH, 2nd Edition, 2004

• "Physics of the Solar Corona" by M. Aschwanden, Springer, 2006

• "The Solar Corona" by L. Golub and J. Pasachoff, Cambridge University Press, 2nd Edition, 2010

• "The Solar Transition Region" by J. T. Mariska, Cambridge University Press, 1992

Lectures

1. Introduction (Chap 1)

2. Radiation (Chaps 2, 4)

3. Absorption (Chap 3)

4. Photosphere & Convection Zone (Chaps 5, 6, 7)

5. Polytrope (Chap 10)

6. Helioseismology (Chaps 13, 14)

7. Chromosphere & Transition Region (Chap 15)

8. Solar Magnetism (Chap 16)

9. Corona (Chap 17)

10. Solar Eruptions

Projects 

1. Line formation (due on October 23)

2. Polytrope & Oscillations in polytrope (due on November 6 )

3. TBD

Presentation (November 25) 

1. Buldgen et al. 2025, Nature Communications, Helioseismic inference of the solar radiative opacity

2. Yuan et al. 2023, Nature Astronomy, Transverse oscillations and an energy source in a strongly magnetized sunspot

3. Hou et al. 2024, Nature Astronomy, The origin of interplanetary switchbacks in reconnection at chromospheric network boundaries

4. Bose et al. 2024, Nature Astronomy, Chromospheric and coronal heating in an active region plage by dissipation of currents from braiding

5. Schmidt et al. 2025, Nature Astronomy, Observations of fine coronal structures with high-order solar adaptive optics

6. Morton et al. 2025, Nature Astronomy, Evidence for small-scale torsional Alfvén waves in the solar corona

7. Anan et al. 2024, Nature Communications, Magnetic diffusion in solar atmosphere produces measurable electric fields

8. Downs et al. 2025, Science, A near-real-time data-assimilative model of the solar corona

9. Zhong et al. 2023, Nature Communications, Polarisation of decayless kink oscillations of solar coronal loops

10. Kumar et al. 2024, Nature Communications, Direct imaging of magnetohydrodynamic wave mode conversion near a 3D null point on the sun

11. Lörinčík et al. 2025, Nature Astronomy, Observation of super-Alfvénic slippage of reconnecting magnetic field lines on the Sun

12. Patel et al. 2025, Nature Astronomy, Direct in situ observations of eruption-associated magnetic reconnection in the solar corona

13. Namekata et al. 2025, Nature Astronomy, Discovery of multi-temperature coronal mass ejection signatures from a young solar analogue

14. Dong et al. 2022, Science Advances, Reconnection-driven energy cascade in magnetohydrodynamic turbulence
    

15. Yardley et al. 2024, Nature Astronomy, Multi-source connectivity as the driver of solar wind variability in the heliosphere