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Critical Science Plan for the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST)

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Critical Science Plan for the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) This is a repository copy of Critical science plan for the Daniel K. Inouye solar telescope (DKIST). White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/165020/ Version: Published Version Article: Rast, MP, González, NB, Rubio, LB et al. (84 more authors) (2021) Critical science plan for the Daniel K. Inouye solar telescope (DKIST). Solar Physics, 296 (4). 70. ISSN 0038-0938 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-021-01789-2 Reuse This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence. This licence allows you to distribute, remix, tweak, and build upon the work, even commercially, as long as you credit the authors for the original work. More information and the full terms of the licence here: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/ Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Solar Phys (2021) 296:70 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-021-01789-2 EDITORS’ CHOICE Critical Science Plan for the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) Mark P. Rast1,2 · Nazaret Bello González3 · Luis Bellot Rubio4 · Wenda Cao5 · Gianna Cauzzi6 · Edward DeLuca7 · Bart De Pontieu8,9 · Lyndsay Fletcher10,9 · Sarah E. Gibson11 · Philip G. Judge11 · Yukio Katsukawa 12,13 · Maria D. Kazachenko1,6 · Elena Khomenko14 · Enrico Landi15 · Valentín Martínez Pillet6 · Gordon J.D. Petrie6 · Jiong Qiu16 · Laurel A. Rachmeler17 · Matthias Rempel11 · Wolfgang Schmidt3 · Eamon Scullion18 · Xudong Sun19 · Brian T. Welsch20 · Vincenzo Andretta21 · Patrick Antolin18 · Thomas R. Ayres22 · K.S. Balasubramaniam23 · Istvan Ballai24 · Thomas E. Berger2 · Stephen J. Bradshaw25 · Ryan J. Campbell26 · Mats Carlsson9 · Roberto Casini11 · Rebecca Centeno11 · Steven R. Cranmer1,2 · Serena Criscuoli6 · Craig DeForest27 · Yuanyong Deng28 · Robertus Erdélyi24 · Viktor Fedun29 · Catherine E. Fischer3 · Sergio J. González Manrique30 · Michael Hahn31 · Louise Harra32 · Vasco M.J. Henriques9 · Neal E. Hurlburt8 · Sarah Jaeggli6 · Shahin Jafarzadeh9 · Rekha Jain24 · Stuart M. Jefferies33 · Peter H. Keys26 · Adam F. Kowalski1,6 · Christoph Kuckein34 · Jeffrey R. Kuhn19 · David Kuridze35 · Jiajia Liu26 · Wei Liu8,36 · Dana Longcope16 · Mihalis Mathioudakis26 · R.T. James McAteer37 · Scott W. McIntosh11 · David E. McKenzie38 · Mari Paz Miralles7 · Richard J. Morton18 · Karin Muglach39,40 · Chris J. Nelson26 · Navdeep K. Panesar8,36 · Susanna Parenti41 · Clare E. Parnell42 · Bala Poduval43 · Kevin P. Reardon6 · Jeffrey W. Reep44 · Thomas A. Schad6 · Donald Schmit2 · Rahul Sharma45,18 · Hector Socas-Navarro14 · Abhishek K. Srivastava46 · Alphonse C. Sterling38 · Yoshinori Suematsu13 · Lucas A. Tarr6 · Sanjiv Tiwari8,36 · Alexandra Tritschler6 · Gary Verth24 · Angelos Vourlidas47 · Haimin Wang5 · Yi-Ming Wang44 · NSO, DKIST project, and DKIST instrument scientists48 · the DKIST Science Working Group48 · the DKIST Critical Science Plan Community48 Received: 13 August 2020 / Accepted: 16 February 2021 / Published online: 19 April 2021 © The Author(s) 2021 This article belongs to the Topical Collection: The Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) Guest Editors: Thomas R. Rimmele, Philip R. Goode, Michael Knölker, Jeffrey R. Kuhn, and Robert Rosner M.P. Rast [email protected] 1 Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA 70 Page2of88 M.P.Rastetal. Abstract The National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) will revolutionize our ability to measure, understand, and model the basic physical processes that control the structure and dynamics of the Sun and its atmosphere. The first-light DKIST images, released publicly on 29 January 2020, only hint at the extraordinary capabilities that will accompany full commissioning of the five facility instruments. With this Critical Science Plan (CSP) we attempt to anticipate some of what those capabilities will enable, providing a snapshot of some of the scientific pursuits that the DKIST hopes to engage as start-of-operations nears. The work builds on the combined contributions of the DKIST Science Working Group (SWG) and CSP Community members, who generously shared their experiences, plans, knowledge, and dreams. Discussion is primarily focused on those issues to which DKIST will uniquely contribute. Keywords Solar photosphere · Chromosphere · Corona 1. Introduction The primary goal of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) is to address long- standing problems in solar physics, such as the operation of the solar dynamo and the heating and acceleration of the solar chromospheric and coronal plasma, but its scientific impact will extend well beyond the Sun. DKIST data will contribute to our understanding of fundamen- tal physical processes, such as the generation and annihilation of magnetic field in plasmas of 2 Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80303, USA 3 Leibniz-Institut für Sonnenphysik (KIS), 79104 Freiburg, Germany 4 Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC), 18080 Granada, Spain 5 Big Bear Solar Observatory, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Big Bear City, CA 92314, USA 6 National Solar Observatory, Boulder, CO 80303, USA 7 Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA 8 Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Laboratory, Palo Alto, CA 94304, USA 9 Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics, University of Oslo, 0315 Oslo, Norway 10 School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, G12 8QQ, UK 11 High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO 80307, USA 12 Department of Astronomical Science, School of Physical Sciences, The Graduate University for Advanced Studies, SOKENDAI, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan 13 National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, National Institutes of Natural Science, Tokyo 181-8588, Japan 14 Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain 15 Department of Climate and Space Sciences and Engineering, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA 16 Department of Physics, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA 17 NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Boulder, CO 80305, USA 18 Department of Mathematics, Physics and Electrical Engineering, Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 8ST, UK DKIST Critical Science Plan Page 3 of 88 70 very high electrical conductivity, the role of turbulence under extreme conditions not achiev- able in terrestrial laboratories, and the quantum mechanical underpinnings of polarization spectroscopy essential to the interpretation of a broad range of astrophysical observations. The anticipated high spatial and temporal resolution high-precision spectropolarimetric ob- servations of the continuously reorganizing and reconfiguring solar magnetic field will allow detailed study of the underlying impulsive energy release and particle-acceleration mecha- nisms responsible for the formation of particle beams and plasma ejecta. These processes are ubiquitous in astrophysics, critical to the stability of laboratory plasmas, and directly impact our ability to robustly extend human technology into the Earth’s space environment. With a post-focus suite of five instruments (see de Wijn et al., 2021; Fehlmann et al., 2021;Jaegglietal.,2021; von der Lühe et al., 2021; Wöger et al., 2021), the DKIST’s novel capabilities come with extreme flexibility and consequent complexity. Significant effort is required to understand how to best leverage that flexibility to achieve the rich scientific goals uniquely accessible by DKIST soon after the start of operations. The strategy of the National Solar Observatory (NSO) has been to actively engage a large cross-section of the US and international solar and space physics community in defining these goals and how to achieve them. This was done, not only to expand the range of science to be pursued, but to help ensure via early assessment that the anticipated critical science can indeed be addressed using the DKIST telescope and the anticipated post-focus instrument suite. At the heart of the DKIST Critical Science Plan, described here, are scientific goals formulated by the DKIST Science Working Group after consideration of the Science Use Cases contributed by the community via an Atlassian® Jira® development interface. Sci- ence Use Case development was partially facilitated by a series of Critical Science Plan Workshops hosted jointly by the NSO and community partners (www.nso.edu/telescopes/ 19 Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, Pukalani, HI 96768, USA 20 Department of Natural and Applied Sciences, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay, WI 54311, USA 21 INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte, 80131 Naples, Italy 22 Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA 23 AFRL Battlespace Environment Division, Albuquerque, NM 87117, USA 24 School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, S3 7RH, UK 25 Department of Physics and Astronomy, Rice University, Houston, TX 77005, USA 26 Astrophysics Research Centre, School of Mathematics and Physics, Queen’s University, Belfast, BT7 1NN, UK 27 Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO 80302, USA 28 Key Laboratory of Solar Activity, National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences,
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