Abstract
The Solar Orbiter/Metis coronagraph records full-Sun visible-light polarized brightness (\(pB\)-) images of the solar corona. This work investigates the utility of a synoptic observational program of Metis for tomographic reconstruction of the three-dimensional (3D) distribution of the electron density of the global solar corona. During its lifetime, the mission’s distance to the Sun will range over \(\approx 0.3-1.0\,\mathrm{AU}\), while its solar latitude will span \(\approx \pm 33^{\circ}\). The limitations that this orbital complexity poses on tomographic reconstructions are explored in this work. Using the predicted orbital information of Solar Orbiter and 3D-MHD simulations of the solar corona using the Alfvén Wave Solar atmosphere Model (AWSoM), time series of synthetic Metis \(pB\)-images were computed and used as data to attempt tomographic reconstruction of the model. These numerical experiments were implemented for solar-minimum and solar-maximum conditions. In both cases, images were synthesized from three orbital segments, corresponding to extreme geometrical conditions of observation by Metis: aphelion, perihelion, and maximum solar latitude. The range of heights that can be reconstructed, the required data-gathering period, and the accuracy of the reconstruction, are discussed in detail for each case. As a general conclusion, a Metis synoptic observational program with a cadence of at least four images day−1 provides enough data to attempt tomographic reconstructions during the whole lifetime of the mission, a requirement well within the two- to three-hour cadence of the current synoptic program. This program will allow implementation of tomography experimenting with different values for the cadence of the time series of images used to feed reconstructions. Its cadence will also provide continuous opportunities to select images avoiding highly dynamic events, which compromise the accuracy of tomographic reconstructions.
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Materials Availability
The 3D electron-density of the AWSoM simulations, their tomographic reconstructions, their computational grid, an IDL script to read those products into memory, and the synthetic images used for tomography, can be downloaded from the following repository: doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.6916541.
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Acknowledgments
The authors acknowledge the thorough revision of the anonymous reviewers, which led to significant improvement of the article both in terms of richness of content and clarity of exposition.
Solar Orbiter is a space mission of international collaboration between ESA and NASA, operated by ESA. Metis was built and operated with funding from the Italian Space Agency (ASI), under contracts to the National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) and industrial partners. Metis was built with hardware contributions from Germany (Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie through DLR), from the Czech Republic (PRODEX), and from ESA.
This work utilizes data obtained by the Global Oscillation Network Group ( GONG ) program, managed by the National Solar Observatory, which is operated by AURA, Inc. under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation. The data were acquired by instruments operated by the Big Bear Observatory, High Altitude Observatory, Learmonth Solar Observatory, Udaipur Solar Observatory, Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, and Cerro Tololo Interamerican Observatory.
Funding
A.M. Vásquez and F.A. Nuevo were partially supported by ANPCyT grant PICT-2016/0221 and CONICET grant PIP-11220200101169 to IAFE. F. Frassati is supported through the Metis program funded by the Italian Space Agency (ASI) under the contracts to the cofinancing National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF): Accordo ASI-INAF No. 2018-30-HH.0. N. Sachdeva and W.B. Manchester IV were supported by the NSF PRE-EVENTS grant No. 1663800 and the NSF SWQU grant No. PHY-2027555. High-performance computing support for these simulations was provided by Frontera (DOI) sponsored by NSF and the NASA supercomputing system Pleiades.
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Vásquez, A.M., Nuevo, F.A., Frassati, F. et al. Tomography of the Solar Corona with the Metis Coronagraph I: Predictive Simulations with Visible-Light Images. Sol Phys 297, 120 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-022-02047-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-022-02047-9