Themes of the Workshop
The Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung is hosting this workshop to mark the new direction of solar research being pursued here. We are involved in the design and development of new instruments for the measurement of vector magnetic fields from the photosphere to the lower layers of the corona. The measurements and their interpretation are difficult and open to controversy but are central to understanding energy release from the Sun. Images of coronal loops, plasma eruption and the measurement of high energy particles from the Sun imply that the dynamics are controlled by the magnetic field. This field fills the whole corona not only the parts that we see. Motion in the photosphere creates currents and current sheets, the sites of reconnection in the chromosphere and corona. Understanding the extent to which these currents and the surrounding magnetic fields can be measured directly and/or through comparison with modelling is a key goal of the workshop.
Several space missions and large-scale projects are now focusing on these topics. Soon (2006) both
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