CAREER: Next Generation Solar Instrumentation: High-Resolution Observations of Small-Scale Magnetic Fields

New Jersey Institute Of Technology, Newark NJ

Investigators

Abstract

A Near InfraRed Imaging Magnetograph (IRIM) and a real-time image reconstruction system will be designed, developed, and deployed by the PI and student assistants. The effort capitalizes on the new Center for Solar Research (CfSR) optical laboratories, which present an ideal environment to involve students in a coordinated program of instrument construction and research. After the instruments are deployed at the Big Bear Solar Observatory, which is operated by the New Jersey Institute of Technology, the gathered data will be used to support research and thesis projects. The scientific objective of these instruments is to resolve some of the fundamental length and time scales of solar magneto-convection. Ultimately these intrinsic scales are related to the global aspects of solar variability and therefore to basic physical processes on the sun that affect the Earth environment, i.e., communications technology, the power grid, civil and military assets, humans in space, and in the end, the terrestrial climate.