The Critical Coronal Transition Region: A Physics-framed Strategy to Uncover the Genesis of the Solar Wind and Solar Eruptions

TL;DR

This paper emphasizes the importance of the Critical Coronal Transition Region (CCTR) in understanding the origins of the solar wind and eruptions, proposing a physics-based approach to unify research efforts and answer fundamental heliophysics questions.

Contribution

It introduces the concept of the CCTR as a key physical region and outlines a decadal plan to explore it for solving core solar physics questions.

Findings

CCTR is crucial for understanding solar wind and eruptions.

A comprehensive exploration of CCTR can unify research communities.

Decadal plan aims to achieve breakthroughs by 2050.

Abstract

Our current theoretical and observational understanding suggests that critical properties of the solar wind and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are imparted within 10 Rs, particularly below 4 Rs. This seemingly narrow spatial region encompasses the transition of coronal plasma processes through the entire range of physical regimes from fluid to kinetic, and from primarily closed to open magnetic field structures. From a physics perspective, therefore, it is more appropriate to refer to this region as the Critical Coronal Transition Region (CCTR) to emphasize its physical, rather than spatial, importance to key Heliophysics science. This white paper argues that the comprehensive exploration of the CCTR will answer two of the most central Heliophysics questions, "How and where does the solar wind form?" and "How do eruptions form?", by unifying hardware/software/modeling development and seemingly disparate research communities and frameworks. We describe the outlines of decadal-scale plan to achieve that by 2050.