Although located at 150 million kilometers from Earth, the Sun is in our immediate neighborhood compared with all other stars. The observation of the Sun along the decades has provided amazingly detailed views of the structure and day-to-day life of a star; the high-resolution observations achieved from Earth and space in recent years, in particular, have facilitated reaching deep theoretical insights concerning the structure and evolution of stellar atmospheres and interiors.
The Sun constitutes a physics laboratory where the complex interactions between the matter (atoms, electrons and ions, or molecules) and the magnetic field can be studied in conditions difficult to reach in devices on Earth. Of particular interest for the public are the spectacular phenomena displayed by its atmosphere, its role in generating the magnetized clouds that, after traversing the interplanetary space, can impact on Earth's magnetosphere and lead to the potentially dangerous solar storms, and the mysteries of the solar interior. Understanding of all those phenomena is gained by a combination of refined theoretical methods and direct or indirect observation using leading-edge technologies.
The solar physics group at the IAC enjoys a leadership position in different branches of solar research in the world. This is exemplified by the award of four large research grants by the European Research Council in the past years to researchers of the group, by its leading role in the European Solar Telescope project, and by its participation in other international networks and instrument projects. Globally, the group combines theoretical methods (magneto-fluid dynamics and plasma physics, radiation transfer), including 3D numerical radiation-MHD modeling, and state-of-the-art observational and diagnostic techniques, to achieve deep understanding of what constitutes and drives the structure and activity of our star.
Solar Physics (FS)
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PublicationAlfvén wave coupled with flow-driven fluid instability in interpenetrating plasmasThe Alfvén wave is analyzed in case of one quasineutral plasma propagating with some constant speed v0 through another static quasineutral plasma. A dispersion...
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PublicationAlfvén wave dissipation in the solar chromosphereMagnetohydrodynamic Alfvén waves1 have been a focus of laboratory plasma physics2 and astrophysics3 for over half a century. Their unique nature makes them...
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PublicationAmbipolar diffusion in the Bifrost codeContext. Ambipolar diffusion is a physical mechanism related to the drift between charged and neutral particles in a partially ionized plasma that is key to...
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PublicationAmbipolar Diffusion in the Lower Solar Atmosphere: Magnetohydrodynamic Simulations of a SunspotMagnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the solar atmosphere are often performed under the assumption that the plasma is fully ionized. However, in the lower...
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PublicationAmbipolar diffusion: Self-similar solutions and MHD code testing. Cylindrical symmetryContext. Ambipolar diffusion is a process occurring in partially ionised astrophysical systems that imparts a complicated mathematical and physical nature to...
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PublicationAn active region filament studied simultaneously in the chromosphere and photosphere. I. Magnetic structureAims: A thorough multiwavelength, multiheight study of the vector magnetic field in a compact active region filament (NOAA 10781) on 2005 July 3 and 5 is...
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PublicationAn active region filament studied simultaneously in the chromosphere and photosphere. II. Doppler velocities<xref ref-type="fn" rid="FN1">Context. Paper I presents the magnetic structure, inferred for the photosphere and the chromosphere, of a filament that developed in active region (AR) NOAA...
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NewsAn asteroid is named after the Jesuit Juan Casanovas, founder of the Solar Physics group at the IACFather Juan Casanovas (1929-2013), a Jesuit astronomer who played an important role in the early years of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC), has...
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PublicationAn introductory guide to fluid models with anisotropic temperatures. Part 1. CGL description and collisionless fluid hierarchyWe present a detailed guide to advanced collisionless fluid models that incorporate kinetic effects into the fluid framework, and that are much closer to the...