Solar Physics with the Square Kilometre Array

TL;DR

The paper discusses the capabilities of the upcoming Square Kilometre Array (SKA) radio telescope in advancing solar physics research through high-resolution observations of the solar corona, flares, and space weather phenomena.

Contribution

It highlights SKA's unique potential for solar observations, detailing its capabilities and the new scientific insights it can enable in solar physics.

Findings

SKA will significantly improve spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution for solar observations.

SKA can provide new insights into coronal heating and solar flare dynamics.

Potential for unprecedented discoveries in solar physics and space weather understanding.

Abstract

The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) will be the largest radio telescope ever built, aiming to provide collecting area larger than 1 km$^2$. The SKA will have two independent instruments, SKA-LOW comprising of dipoles organized as aperture arrays in Australia and SKA-MID comprising of dishes in South Africa. Currently the phase-1 of SKA, referred to as SKA1, is in its late design stage and construction is expected to start in 2020. Both SKA1-LOW (frequency range of 50-350 MHz) and SKA1-MID Bands 1, 2, and 5 (frequency ranges of 350-1050, 950-1760, and 4600-15300 MHz, respectively) are important for solar observations. In this paper we present SKA's unique capabilities in terms of spatial, spectral, and temporal resolution, as well as sensitivity and show that they have the potential to provide major new insights in solar physics topics of capital importance including (i) the structure and evolution of the solar corona, (ii) coronal heating, (iii) solar flare dynamics including particle acceleration and transport, (iv) the dynamics and structure of coronal mass ejections, and (v) the solar aspects of space weather. Observations of the Sun jointly with the new generation of ground-based and space-borne instruments promise unprecedented discoveries.