Constraining global magnetic models of the solar corona using white-light observations

This project will develop a method for aligning potential field source surface (PFSS) models of the solar corona with white-light observations of high-density structures on the photosphere. It is expected that the PFSS neutral line and the location of high-density structures align. However, this is not usually the case.

This project will use several PFSS models with varying source surface heights above the solar surface and compare these against observations to find the closest fit at each point in longitude.

The corresponding slices of the models where they align with the observations will then be combined to create a new "best fit" model.

Once this has been completed, we will look into creating a PFSS model from scratch based on this method for finding the best fit.