Exploring the multi-scaled nature of solar vortices with DKIST

Braiding and twisting of magnetic field structures, rooted within the surface of the Sun, has been considered important for understanding the origins of solar atmospheric heating, one of the longest unsolved puzzles in all of astrophysics. Persistent counter-streaming flows at the solar surface layer (known as the photosphere) provides the perfect conditions facilitating magnetic twist, brought about by vortex formation due to turbulent convection. Multi-layer numerical MagnetoHydroDynamics (MHD) of 3D vortex tubes have shown that they are more than adequate to supply enough Poynting flux to heat the solar corona. However, it is not yet known how frequently vortices appear from observations, how correlated they are between the atmospheric layers and how magnetic fields respond to vortices. With the advent of the Daniel K Inouye 4-m Solar Telescope (DKIST) observations, we now have the opportunity to understand the collective nature of solar vortices statistically, at unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution, and to finally confirm the collective contribution of vortices to solar atmospheric heating.

Despite recent advancements in the statistical account of small-scale vortex motions in the solar photosphere, their magnetic fields and heating impacts in the layers above remain unconfirmed. Vortex motion is expected to dictate much of the physics in other twisting phenomena that appear to dominate the chromosphere, including spicules Photospheric vortex flow fields are often inferred from motions of magnetic bright points at intergranular lanes. With the application of a novel fully-automated photospheric vortex identification algorithms, inter-granular photospheric intensity vortices have been detected in large numbers for the first time, with the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope. At the resolution of 100km, it was proposed that at any time there could be ~1.4x106 photospheric vortices covering about 2.8% of the solar surface. However, in the chromosphere above the photosphere the manifestation of vortices is much more difficult to detect and so far most studies are limited to a handful of events detected "by eye". In this project, we will develop new approaches to the automated detection of vortices in multiple atmospheric layers with DKIST, in order to understand the 3D nature of vortex tubes channelling energy from the photosphere to the corona. The project aims to exploit new ground-based observations from DKIST in order to accurately quantify:

a) how many vortices in the photosphere appear as chromospheric vortices (and vice versa)?
b) how twisted are magnetic fields within vortex tubes in the chromosphere?
c) how much MHD wave power is excited in chromospheric swirls for basal heating of the corona?
To address the three questions we outline the following three project objectives:

Detect, track, characterize and correlate simultaneous vortex flows in both the photosphere and chromosphere, using DKIST observations. Demonstrate the coupling of vorticity between atmospheric layers and understand its importance for energy transfer.
Measure changes in the vector magnetic field in the photosphere and chromosphere from DKIST observations in VISP, VBI and VTF. Find evidence of magnetic twist in swirls, for the first time, which is an important feature of numerical models of magnetic tornadoes in delivering Poynting flux.
Identify and characterize wave properties, correlations with heating signatures and non-potentiality of magnetic field in a large-scale swirl, co-observed with DKIST and Interface Region Imaging Spectrometer (IRIS).