How the solar wind is accelerated, heated, and driven turbulent is among the most important open questions in Heliophysics and our plasma universe, but hard to address using spacecraft missions and numerical simulations alone. To complement these approaches, it is important to build a laboratory Solar Wind Machine to isolate, control, and diagnose plasma phenomena responsible for the complex solar wind behavior. Read more about the idea Here.
The workshop has two major aims:
- Refine a list of high-priority physics targets for understanding the behavior of the turbulent solar wind (with a focus on magnetized plasma turbulence and instabilities & dissipation) and to propose and develop candidate machine designs for the facility. Designs proposed at this workshop can be subsequently developed into a proposal to build the device.
- Nurture the budding investigator network working on the device by involving researchers from different parts of the field (space observation, computer simulations, theory, laboratory experiments) and different career stages (including graduate students and postdocs) in the above discussions. This broad array of expertise will expose participants to subject areas and research techniques with which they may not be familiar.
Workshop focus groups on magnetized plasma turbulence and instabilities & dissipation are meeting in advance of the meeting over Zoom. Focus groups are charged with refining broad problems of interest into high priority physics targets for the Solar Wind Machine; these targets will be discussed and developed into candidate machine design ideas during break-out sessions at the April 18-20 workshop. To join one of the focus groups, fill out the form here: https://forms.gle/Gz7gtYM38dYzkT7KA