[REU Student · 2022-2026]

Helium Abundance Periods Observed by the Solar Probe Cup on Parker Solar Probe: Encounters 1–14

A systematic assessement of He abundances observed by PSP's SPC revealing 87% of the periods examined are connected to coronal mass ejections (CMEs), with the highest abundance reaching 23.1%. We also show the helium abundances of CMEs increase during the ascending phase of the solar cycle.

[REU Student · 2023-2026]

Callie A. García

Tracing a Multitemperature Quiescent Prominence’s Thermodynamic Evolution from Sun to Earth

Prominences are cool, dense plasma clouds suspended in the Sun's much hotter corona. When they erupt, does that cool plasma heat up, or can some of it survive? Combining remote sensing diagnostics, captured stereoscopically from three vantage points, with in situ measurements of charge states sampled by near the Earth. Together, diagnostics show the erupting prominence heats up substantially, but its central core can survive as cool, weakly ionized plasma beyond the corona.

[REU student · 2023-2025]

Andi Kisare

Quantifying the Accuracy of Coronal Models Over the Solar Cycle

Quantitatively tested the PFSS solar coronal model against three accuracy metrics and confirmed it performs worse during solar maximum than solar minimum, as had been suspected but not previously verified. It was found that the existing white-light metric (Badman et al 2022) poorly captured coronal structure at solar maximum and developed an improved method for extracting streamer-belt structure to address this, concluding that non-potential models are preferable for solar-maximum conditions.

[High school students · 2024-2025]

Jacqueline Goh, Neel Chattopadhyay, Kristen Chun

Heavy Ion Composition of Magnetic Switchback Patches in Solar Wind

Magnetic switchback patches are bundles of Alfven waves measured in the near-Sun solar wind first identified by Parker Solar Probe (PSP) in 2018. The question remains as to where they are formed: in the corona or on their way to PSP? The work examined heavy ions in switchbacks to determine if any signatures of a coronal origin remained. The work does not find significant heavy ion signatures (in line with Rivera+2024) suggesting an in situ formation process.