Turbulent Origins of the Sun's Hot Corona and the Solar Wind

Abstract: The solar corona is the hot and ionized outer atmosphere of the Sun.  It traces out the complex solar magnetic field and expands into interplanetary space as the supersonic solar wind.  In 1958, Eugene Parker theorized that the presence of a million-degree corona necessarily requires the outward acceleration of a wind.  However, despite many years of exploration of both phenomena, we still do not have a complete understanding of the processes that heat the coronal plasma to its bizarrely high temperatures.  In this talk, I will discuss some new observations and theoretical concepts that are helping us get closer to an answer to this infamous coronal heating problem.  We will begin by examining super-high-resolution images of the Sun's surface from the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), zoom out to ultraviolet and X-ray images that illustrate how magnetic field lines thread their way through the corona, and then follow the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) spacecraft through its repeated dives into the innermost zones of the solar wind.  I will do my best to make sense of the puzzling physical processes that must be at work in producing and maintaining this massive plasma laboratory that sits about 150 million kilometers away.