Coronal holes (CH) are the darkest and least active regions of the Sun, as observed both on the solar disc and above the solar limb. CHs are associated with expanding open magnetic fields and the acceleration of the high speed solar wind. For space weather purpose it is therefore important to locate precisely the coronal holes on EUV images. We have developed SPOCA-CH, an algorithm for extracting and tracking Coronal Holes in EUV images. SPOCA-CH is based on Fuzzy C-Means algorithm and is applied on square root of 19.3nm SDO-AIA images. We describe the algorithm, and present the results obtained on a dataset ranging from June 2010 till May 2011. We study the distribution in intensity inside the CHs, and compare it to the one of the Quiet Sun. Next, we validate the results by combining them with information coming from other instruments such as SDO-HMI magnetograms. The SPoCA-CH module is implemented within the HEK, and provides boundary localisation of coronal holes in near real time.

We summarize the recent results of in situ studies addressing the physical mechanisms of suprathermal electron acceleration during magnetic reconnection. Most of the studies are based on the observations by Cluster satellites in the Earth magnetotail. We identify three main regions of electron acceleration - reconnection X-line, secondary islands and magnetic flux pile-up region in front of the reconnection jet. We give an example of observations from each region and discuss their relative importance. Finally, we discuss the importance of the results on the solar flare observations.

The SPICE EUV spectrometer is part of the payload of the ESA Solar Orbiter mission. Its two-elements optical design, an off-axis mirror and a Toroidal Variable Line Space grating, ensures adequate throughput despite the size limitations required by the challenging mission profile. SPICE will acquire spectra in two spectral ranges, from about 70.4 nm to 79 nm and from 97.2 nm to 104.9 nm. Those ranges include bright lines formed on a wide temperature range, from the chromosphere (e.g., H I Ly β at 102.576 nm, T=0.02 MK) thoughout the Transition Region (e.g., C III 97.7 nm, T=0.07 MK; O VI 103.193 nm, T=0.3 MK; Ne VIII 77.041 nm, T=0.6 MK) to the corona (e.g., Mg IX 70.604 nm, T=1 MK; Si XII 52.066 nm, T=2 MK; Fe XVIII 97.486 nm, T=7 MK) and up to flare temperatures (e.g., Fe XX 72.155 nm, T=10 MK). Here we present the spectra expected from SPICE when observing the quiet Sun and active regions. The spectra, in detected photons/s per resolution element, are calculated assuming the current optical design of SPICE and using SUMER/SOHO and CDS/SOHO spectra as input.

In plasma physics and solar physics one of the studied key stuctures is the flux rope as a simplification and generalisation of real events. The understanding of their evolution through 3D simulation is one of our main goals. In this presentation we would like to describe our last study on this topic, in particular we have been investigating a kinetic simulation of kink instability in an infinite flux rope. We have investigated the evolution of its geometry considering various techniques such as Poincare' maps and Quasi-Seperatrix Layer (QSL). QSL's, in particular have been used by solar physicists to estimate regions in which 3D magnetic field line reconnection may occur and cosequently where heating and current can generate.

We investigated a group of failed eruptions observed simultaneously in EUVs (TRACE) and HXRs (RHESSI or Yohkoh/HXT). We focused the research on the eruptions that were stopped due to an interaction with overlying high loops. The TRACE images were searched for impulsive brightenings during the evolution of the eruptions. We found that EUV brightenings are observed simultaneously with decrease in the speed of the eruption front. Moreover, the brightenings are correlated with episodes of hardening of HXR spectra. The careful reconstruction of HXR images led us to observation of HXR sources at the front of the failed eruption. We also found HXR sources that correlate with EUV brightenings. All found EUV brightenings are located at the footpoints of the overlying high loops far away from the flare site. The collected set of observational facts suggests that the observed features are caused by the population of non thermal particles that were accelerated during the episodes of interaction between the eruption fronts and overlying high loops.

We perform an analysis of the deformation of the front MC boundaries. We estimate the boundary normals using different approaches: 1) geometrical estimation of the boundary normal using analytical models (circular and elliptic); 2) calculation of the boundary normal using magnetic field data close to the boundary (vector cross-product and MVA). Significant differences between the expected and measured normals are generally observed. We discuss these differences in terms of MC flattening during propagation and the possible occurrence of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability at the boundary (i.e., akin to the case of Earth’s magnetosphere.

Updated analysis of an erupting prominence on 6-7 December 2010 shows the presence of alternating regions of twist along the filament channel, as found using triangulation with STEREO Ahead and Behind when the two spacecraft were close to 180 degrees separation. Earlier analysis suggested that the erupting prominence changed helicity signs, as expressed through the twist, just prior to eruption. It is now recognized that different parts of the prominence have different twists, and the relative importance of these different segments changes with time. The two parts of the overall prominence structure with positive twist erupt, with the left branch erupting on 6 December, and the right branch erupting twelve hours later on the following day. In between these two erupting branches is a non-erupting segment with negative twist.

The proton thermal energetics in the solar wind between 0.3 and 1 AU is re-investigated using the Helios 1 and 2 data. Heating and cooling rates are evaluated for the slow and fast solar wind and compared with estimates of the turbulent cascading energy. The observed rates are compared with the results of hybrid expanding box simulations. Possible influence of the interaction between fast and slow solar wind streams on the proton energetics is also discussed.

The CDPP (Centre de Données de la Physique des Plasmas), the French data center for plasma physics, is engaged for more than a decade in the archiving and dissemination of data products from space missions and ground observatories. Besides these activities, the CDPP developed services like AMDA which enables in depth analysis of large amount of data through dedicated functionalities such as : visualization, conditional search, cataloguing, ... The popularity of such tools, together with its expertise in database interoperability, enabled the CDPP to take part in several European projects (Europlanet, Helio, IMPEx) and international consortia (SPASE, IPDA). In the context of Solar Orbiter, the Science Data Centre and Archive for SWA data will be part of CDPP at IRAP. The archive will be responsible for disseminating levels 2 and 3 data, together with associated software and documentation. In order to associate solar observations to in-situ measurements, for forthcoming Solar Orbiter data, but also for current missions, the CDPP is now developing a solar wind propagation tool; the computation of the propagation, i.e. the time delay between observations at the Sun and at an interplanetary location, relies either on models or imagery. Notably, it will enable and greatly facilitate cross analysis of data held both at CDPP and at MEDOC. MEDOC (located at IAS) is the European archiving centre for SOHO, and it also provides some SDO, TRACE and STEREO data, together with the Festival visualisation tool. The conjugated analysis of solar data with in-situ measurements is indeed a primary focus for the Solar Orbiter mission. This presentation will present current data and analysis tools available at CDPP, the future role of the SWA SDCA and illustrate the synergy with MEDOC through one use case taking advantage of the propagation tool functionalities.

The twin STEREO spacecraft were launched in October 2006. They follow a heliocentric orbit in the ecliptic plane, moving away from the Earth in opposite directions, reaching an azimuthal separation of 180 degrees in February 2011. With this configuration, the identical payload aboard both spacecraft combined with near-Earth observations provide an unique platform for multi-point in-situ studies of Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) events over broad angular ranges, combined with a 360-degree remote-sensing coverage of the Sun. This kind of observations complemented with particle transport models, are the key to understand the relative role of different processes proposed to explain the broad angular spread of energetic particles during some SEP events, such as: strongly diverging magnetic field lines below the source surface, broad acceleration or injection regions in the corona or the interplanetary medium, or perpendicular diffusion in the interplanetary medium. In this work we analyse the November 3, 2011 SEP event, associated with a two-ribbon flare accompanied by a fast backside halo Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) and type II radio-emission. The particle increases during this event were clearly observed over a wide angular region covering at least 258 degrees at 1 AU. All spacecraft observed clear enhancements of protons, reaching energies above 50 MeV, and electrons above 2 MeV. Nearly relativistic electrons during the early phase of the event showed significant anisotropies at ACE and both STEREO. An ICME preceded by an interplanetary shock, likely related to the November 3 CME was observed in-situ at STB location during November 6-9. We discuss these observations and the possible scenarios explaining the extremely broad particle spread for this event.

In this work, the temporal evolution at different scales of the MHD rugged invariants (magnetic helicity, cross-helicity and residual energy) in space plasmas has been investigated, by using the wavelet transforms as a new powerful tool. The main goal is a better characterization of the fluctuations in which interplanetary flux ropes are embedded. This approach can represent the basis for a new treatment of in-situ measurements of this kind of events and appears to be very promising in investigating the origin of small-scale flux ropes advected by the solar wind, since both a local and a coronal origin are indeed possible.

Simulations of the detection capability of the flux ropes by means of the determination of the reduced magnetic helicity, during the orbit of the spacecraft, show that Solar Orbiter, which will approaches closer to the Sun than even before and explores the heliosphere in and out of the ecliptic plane, will improve such studies, thus providing additional clues on the origin of interplanetary flux ropes.

ESA’s medium-class Solar Orbiter mission is conceived to perform a close-up study of our Sun and inner heliosphere to better understand the behavior of our star. The mission will reveal how the Sun creates and controls the solar wind and thereby affects the environments of all the planets. The spacecraft is equipped with a comprehensive suite of instruments that can be divided into two groups, remote and in-situ instruments. Remote sensing instruments will observe the dynamics of the Sun and its surface layers in different wavelengths and through a variety of techniques, while in-situ instruments will study the particles, fields and waves fields in the solar wind immediately above those source regions on the Sun which are monitored by the remote sensing instruments. The Energetic Particle Detector (EPD) is an in-situ instrument that is composed by five different sensors (EPT, HET, LET, SIS and STEIN), all of them sharing the Instrument Control Unit or ICU. In this work we present the hardware and software design of the EPD ICU.

In this study, we investigate the behavior at different scales of reduced magnetic helicity, cross-helicity and residual energy in the solar wind using a new tool based on wavelet transform. The main goal of this study is a better characterization of the fluctuations in which interplanetary flux ropes are embedded. This kind of information can be helpful in solving the debate about where small-scale flux ropes originate from since both a local and solar origin have been suggested. Solar Orbiter high resolution measurements close to the Sun will greatly improve this study allowing a very promising investigation of the origins of these objects advected by the solar wind.

The Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing (SWAP) EUV imager onboard PROBA2 provides a non-stop stream of coronal Extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) images at a cadence of typically 100s. These images show the solar drivers of space weather, such as flares and erupting filaments. We have developed a software tool that automatically processes the images and localises and identifies flares. On one hand, the output of this software tool is intended as a service to the Space Weather Segment of ESA’s Space Situational Awareness Program (SSA). On the other hand, we consider the PROBA2/SWAP images as a model for the data from the EUI instrument prepared for the future Solar Orbiter mission, where onboard intelligence is required for prioritising data within the challenging telemetry quota. In this paper we present the concept of the software, the first statistics on its ef- fectiveness and the online display in real-time of its results. Our results indicate that it is not only possible to detect EUV flares automatically in an acquired dataset, but that quantifying a range of EUV dynamics is also possible. The method is based on thresholding of macropixeled image sequences. The robustness and simplicity of the algorithm is a clear advantage for future onboard use.

This work is based on simulations performed with the Spacecraft Plasma Interaction System (SPIS). This software - a development project of the European Space Agency (ESA) - is built as an open source code with the support of the Spacecraft Plasma Interaction Network in Europe (SPINE) community. The « SPIS-Science » extension, performed under ESA contract (N# 4000102091/10/NL/AF), aims at extending the capabilities of SPIS modeling framework for accurate evaluation of low-level surface electrostatic charging of science missions with low- energy plasma instruments. The validation test cases for this extension comprise simulations of the Solar Orbiter spacecraft in its various environments. Those studies focus on Solar Orbiter electric field measurements and wake , plus an investigation on the on board instrument : Solar Wind Analyser - Electron Analyser System measurements (SWA-EAS). Since Solar Orbiter closest perihelion is located at 0.28 AU from the Sun, the Debye length of ambient plasma is expected to be between 2 and 3.5 m. The Solar flux will be 13 times the one at 1 AU, leading to a high photo-emitted electron current density on spacecraft surfaces (expected at 0.1 mA/m2 ), and therefore a photoelectron density near the surfaces corresponding to a Debye length 10 times less than the one of the ambient particles). Under such conditions negative barriers of potential can occur around the spacecraft hereby repelling the photoelectrons and secondary electrons back to the spacecraft and leading to negative spacecraft charging. Furthermore, an ion wake is expected in the solar wind which may further affect the spacecraft potential and perturb the low energy particle measurements. The outbreak and emphasis of those phenomena will be determined and quantified through the SPIS-Science validation cases. Simulations of a 3D CAD model of Solar Orbiter are being performed for several heliocentric distances (0.15, 0.28, 0.6, 1 AU), various Solar wind conditions (slow/fast winds, influence of non thermal populations ”Halo” and ”Strahl”) and solar panels inclinations (facing the Sun or 35°). The following effects on the spacecraft charging, the potential at the Solar Orbiter RPW antennas location, the wake structure and the electron instrument will be presented. As with the SPIS-Science extension, numerical instruments aiming at simulating particle detectors now provide 3D distributions for ambient and secondaries populations, predicted electron distribution functions from SWA-EAS will be computed and discussed for all those considered environments, with estimations of perturbations on the measurements.

Two upcoming space-born coronagraphs on-board challenging missions of ESA will deliver unprecedented observations of the solar corona including its innermost part. METIS on-board Solar Orbiter will observe the corona in the white light, hydrogen Lyman-alpha and He II 304 ang. from 1.2 to 3 solar radii at perihelion bellow 0.25 AU, when it will see coronal structures in the co-rotating mode. Later during the mission METIS will observe also in out-of-ecliptic mode. Externally occulted ASPIICS coronagraph on-board Proba-3 formation flight (two satellites) will deliver near-solar-eclipse capabilities with very low level of the stray-light that will allow coronal observations from 1.04 to 3 solar radii in the white light and H-alpha (or He I D3), together with Fe XIV. MAGIC coronagraph onboard the proposed ESA S-class mission SIGMA will have imaging and polarimetric capabilities in white-light and Lyman-alpha with 5” resolution and 1.1 to 3 solar radii field of view. Observations of the evolution of eruptive prominences and the developing CMEs in the Lyman-alpha and He II 304 ang. lines will allow to study the Doppler velocities and the Doppler dimming and thus the dynamics of the erupting plasma. That, in combination with the white-light observations, will enable the determination of the electron density and the ionization degree of hydrogen and helium which also provides information about the prominence mass loading. Co-spatial white-light and H-alpha observations of eruptive prominences will allow us to investigate the temporal evolution of the hydrogen ionization degree in the erupting plasma and thus to study the heating of eruptive prominences and developing CMEs. H-alpha will be also used as the measure of dynamics through the Doppler brightening effect.

Ground level events (GLEs) are solar energetic particle (SEP) events that are recorded by ground-based instrumentation. The energy of the particles is so high that they produce secondary particles, i.e. protons and neutrons, which are detected as sudden increases in cosmic ray intensities measured by e.g. neutron monitors. On May 17 at 1:25 UT a M5.1 X-ray flare from the active region 11476 (N07W88) was detected accompanied by type II and III radio bursts and a coronal mass ejection heading towards STEREO A. The corresponding shock wave passed STEREO A on May 18 at 12:43 UT but missed the Earth and STEREO B. The event onset of near relativistic electrons was at SOHO (250 -700 keV), at STEREO A and B (125-335 keV) at 1:51 UT, 6:05 UT and 3:38 UT, respectively. In contrast to observations close to the Earth no strong anisotropies have been observed at both STEREO A and B. The neutron monitor network recorded the first GLE for solar cycle 24. The Electron Proton Helium INstrument on board SOHO measured protons with energies of more than 600 MeV (rigidities of more than 1.2 GV). The interplanetary field direction was such that neutron monitor stations with asymptotic direction in the 1 to 2 GV range over Australia were connected best and recorded the biggest increase of 17% (Apatity and Oulu) with an onset time of 1:52 UT. Data observed close to and at Earth will be presented and the longitudinal structure of the event in the inner heliosphere will be discussed.

The Solar Investigation using a Global coronal MAgnetograph (SIGMA) is a new small space mission concept submitted to ESA in the framework of the ESA Science Programme for a launch in 2017. SIGMA will study dynamic plasma processes in the Sun's magnetized atmosphere using unprecedented space-borne measurements of the coronal magnetic field. In spite of its fundamental importance as a driver for the physics of the Sun and of the heliosphere, the magnetic field of our star's outer atmosphere remains poorly understood. SIGMA's routine measurements of the coronal magnetic field will therefore be of paramount importance for solar physics. They will represent a significant advance in understanding the mechanism of the solar wind acceleration and solar eruptions and therefore of the solar source of space weather disturbances that can affect our technology-dependent society. SIGMA will observe the solar corona in visible light and in three passbands of the EUV spectrum, and both the corona and chromosphere in the H I Lyman-alpha passband. The polarization of the H I Lyman-alpha emission in the corona is sensitive, via the Hanle effect, to the magnitude and orientation of the coronal magnetic field. The polarization analysis of the H I Lyman-alpha emission will, for the first time, provide global maps of the coronal magnetic field based on observations of the corona. The H I Lyman-alpha line intensity is also sensitive to the outflow velocity of the scattering atoms. The associated velocity diagnostics (so-called Doppler dimming) proved to be extremely successful in SOHO observations, and will be further refined by SIGMA to probe the source regions of the solar wind. The science goals, the mission profile, and the scientific payload of the SIGMA mission will be presented and discussed. Special attention will be paid to possible synergies between SIGMA, Solar Orbiter, and Solar Probe Plus.

We present EUV radiance measurements of the Sun obtained with the SOHO/Coronal Diagnostic Spectrometer (CDS) during solar cycle 23, from 1996 to 2010, in the wavelength ranges 308-379 A and 513-633 A in first spectral order, plus the He II, Si XI lines at 304 A in second order. CDS observed several lines directly or indirectly relevant for the Solar Orbiter METIS, EUI, and SPICE Remote Sensing instruments. We discuss the evolution of these radiances and their distributions across the solar disk along a full solar activity cycle, with reference to similar phases of the solar cycle foreseen during the Solar Orbiter mission. We estimate the off-limb behaviour of some of the strongest lines, including the strong He II 304 A and Si XI 303 A lines, which are specifically relevant for the Solar Orbiter METIS coronagraph and EUI imager. We finally present estimates of the radiances in some lines outside the observed range but still relevant for Solar Orbiter instruments, like for instance the H I Ly-alpha line, using information derived from the SOHO CDS measurements.

In the Sun’s atmosphere, flare events produce high energy electrons that mostly propagate into the chromosphere, producing hard X-ray (HXR) bremsstrahlung emission. HXR photons emitted away from the Sun will propagate freely into interplanetary space while HXRs emitted towards the photosphere are either absorbed or Compton scattered. Compton scattering leads to a ‘reflected’ albedo component that is always observed in conjunction with the primarily produced bremsstrahlung component, and hence leads to an alteration in the observed HXR emission, greatest at peak scattering energies of 20-50 keV.  Amongst the many other important consequences of such a reflection, the albedo component also alters the polarization of the primary HXR source, a property that is highly dependent on the directivity of the HXR distribution and hence provides us with a method of determining the anisotropy of the radiating electron distribution. We created Monte Carlo simulations of photon transport in the photosphere in order to simulate the radiation transfer of polarized X-ray photons and to obtain the Stokes parameters for each source. We present the first results of spatially resolved polarization for a single HXR source due to the presence of an albedo component. Our results show for an HXR source at a single disk location, spatially resolved polarization substantially changes with photon and hence electron directivity, with changes for both the degree and angle of polarization. Hence our results highlight how spatially resolved polarization measurements could help constrain electron directivity for an individual flare and optimise future X-ray imaging polarimetry missions.

X-rays from solar flares serve as an important and direct observational tool for determining how and why electrons are accelerated. Using observations from the Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) and the imaging algorithm of visibility forward fitting (VIS FWDFIT) we studied the dynamics of source spatial properties: lengths parallel to the guiding field, widths perpendicular to the guiding field and the centroid positions of three coronal X-ray loop top sources. We observed how these parameters changed in time during the evolution of each flare; before, during and after the peak X-ray emission at energies between 10-25 keV. For the first time, it was observed that the lengths and widths, and hence the volume, of each source decreased while the X-ray emission was increasing. After the peak in X-ray emission, the volume of each source increased, mainly due to a growth in source width. For one event situated at the limb, we also observed a decrease in altitude before the peak in X-ray emission and an increase after the peak, consistent with the results of other coronal loop source observations. However, we note that the changes in loop volume were the dominant changes for each event, over any position changes. Using our imaging parameters in combination with spectral parameters (emission measure and plasma temperature), we also inferred how the number density, thermal pressure and energy density evolved during the observational time for each event. This allowed us to build a fuller picture of how the coronal region changed during the evolution of each flare. From our results, energy release occurs during the entire observational time for each event; before, during and after the peaks in X-ray emission and during both the compression and expansion phases of the loop volumes.

The Federation of distributed data sources and Scientific Teams (FOREST) European Space Agency project will deliver beyond state of the art searching and data retrieval services in the domain of heliophysics. The forest data model and semantic description will allow complex data queries to be run yielding access to previously unseen or inaccessible relationships. The data will then be presented through a web browser interface using the latest HTML5 and Web 3.0 technologies providing the ability view and interact with the observations Each space mission generates data formatted for the particular needs of the space mission and scientific research related to the mission. Even within a single mission the individual instruments may use different data formats and standards. If other scientific groups require access to the mission or instrument data it can prove extremely problematic as there is no common description which can be easily searched through and there is no centralised place to perform such a search. This means that approaches for scientists to access information from different missions and even from different instruments on the same mission are very varied and non-standard. Data access technologies are now evolving on the Internet so that web sites are now providing “Web service” interfaces to information. “Web services” provide a means for different data providers to provide access to information in a vendor and language neutral means through the use of XML technologies for the representation and transmission of data. This gives the flexibility for data stored in many different formats, for example common data format (CDF), flexible image transport system (FITS), ASCII and binary to be shared. In addition many development tools now exist to take a legacy system or data source and support the development of a web interface to access the data. Therefore current mission data sources based on traditional FTP and HTTP interfaces can easily be extended to also provide a web service based access to information. Due to the issues identified above and with the emergence of interface standards such as web services, a new approach can now be provided to scientists for access to space mission data. In addition, emerging Web 2.0 technologies for development of advanced visualisation and interactive interfaces have made huge advances in the last couple of years. This technology would allow for the graphing of data sets via web based interfaces and provide the ability to study the underlying scientific data sets and perform initial analysis and presentation of the data. This would enable the scientist to identify events that could require further scientific research which previously was extremely difficult or impossible to accomplish. It is in these areas that the FOREST projects and related system hopes to address. Therefore the scope of the FOREST project is through the application of the latest in web services to interface with data sets, the use of advanced semantic web concepts for data classification and usage of ontologies and the creation of powerful semantic based searching of the data and visualisation of the results from several data sets simultaneously FOREST should provide a powerful solution for space scientists to access research information.

The Solar Wind Analyzer (SWA) instrument on Solar Orbiter consists of a suite of 3 sensors, the Electron Analyser System (EAS), the Proton-Alpha Sensor (PAS) and the Heavy Ion Sensor (HIS), together with a common DPU. This paper will present the details of the SWA-EAS sensor, designed to measure low energy solar wind electrons. EAS consists of two electrostatic analyser heads, mounted with their fields-of-view orthogonally to each other at the end of a four metre boom. Each head is an enhanced performance top-hat analyser with electrostatic steerable look direction and a novel variable geometric factor system. We will present details of the sensor design, discuss the ongoing development activities and present results from calibration tests. Some of the key systems level challenges being addressed in the development phase will also be presented.

STIX (Spectrometer Telescope for Imaging X-rays) is one of the instruments selected for the payload of ESA's Solar Orbiter mission. It will provide imaging spectroscopy of solar X-ray emission in the energy range 4-150 keV with unprecedented sensitivity, spatial and temporal resolution (especially near perihelion), and spectral resolution. One of the basic scientific aims of the Solar Orbiter mission is to study the acceleration of electrons during flares. STIX is the core instrument for this topic. The flare is widely accepted as a manifestation of magnetic reconnection in the solar corona. In the magnetic reconnection region, the inflow region is separated by the outflow one by pairs of slow-mode shocks. At these shocks, magnetic field energy can efficiently be annihilated and transfered into the generation of electrons with energies > 30 keV. Such electrons are needed for the emission of the X-ray radiation during flares. The theoretically obtained fluxes of energetic electrons agree very well with those measured by RHESSI during X-class flares. STIX will allow to study this mechanism in a much better quality.

The Energetic Particle Detector (EPD) suite for ESA's Solar Orbiter will provide key measurements to address particle acceleration at and near the Sun. The EPD suite consists of five sensors (STEIN, SIS, EPT, LET and HET). The University of Kiel in Germany is responsible for the design, development, and build of EPT and HET which are presented here. The Electron Proton Telescope (EPT) is designed to cleanly separate and measure electrons in the energy range from 20 - 400 keV and protons from 20 - 7000 keV. The Solar Orbiter EPT electron measurements from 20 - 400 keV will cover the gap with some overlap between suprathermal electrons measured by STEIN and high energy electrons measured by HET. The proton measurements from 20 -7000 keV will cover the gap between STEIN and LET. The Electron and Proton Telescope relies on the magnet/foil-technique. The High-Energy Telescope (HET) on ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission, will measure electrons from 300 keV up to about 30 MeV, protons from 10 –100 MeV, and heavy ions from ~20 to 200 MeV/nuc. Thus, HET covers the energy range which is of specific interest for studies of the space environment and will perform the measurements needed to understand the origin of high-energy events at the Sun which occasionally accelerate particles to such high energies that they can penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere and be measured at ground level (ground-level events). These measurement capabilities are reached by a combination of solid-state detectors and a scintillator calorimeter which allows use of the dE/dx vs. total E technique for particle identification and energy measurement. The upper limits on energy listed above refer to particles (ions) stopping in the scintillator and careful modeling of HET properties will allow discrimination of forward/backward penetrating particles in a wider energy range. Here we present the current development status of EPT-HET units focusing on the test and calibration results obtained with the demonstration models and present plans for future activities.

The electron heat flux properties in the solar wind have been examined based on Helios 1 and 2 in situ observations. The data set covers the heliocentric radial range between 0.3 and 1.0 AU in the ecliptic plane only. Understanding the fundamental heat transport and energy dissipation in the expanding solar wind plasmas requires a detail analysis of electron velocity distribution functions (eVDF) and particularly their non-thermal features. Our study is based on a full three component (core-halo-strahl) analytical modeling of measured 2D eVDF and consequent analysis of derived eVDF moments. First we provide radial profiles of observed characteristics, that is the electron density, temperature, and heat flux. These profiles are further used to analyse corresponding heating/cooling rates in the expanding solar wind, separately for the slow and fast solar wind streams.

In February 2011 the two STEREO spacecraft reached a separation of 180 degrees in longitude, offering a complete view of the Sun for the first time ever. Since the full Sun's surface is visible, source active regions of solar energetic particle (SEP) events can be identified unambiguously. STEREO, in combination with near-Earth observatories like SOHO and ACE provide three well separated viewpoints, which are a perfect platform to investigate SEP events especially in terms of the longitudinal distribution of energetic particles. In this study we show an ensemble of wide-spread SEP events, which were observed by at least two spacecraft. A further selection criterion for these events is that the longitudinal separation between source active region and spacecraft magnetic footpoint is at least 80 degrees for the widest separated spacecraft. We investigate the events in a statistical manner in terms of maximum intensities, onset delays, rise times, anisotropies and further in-situ and remote-sensing information to shed some light on the physical processes yielding such extremely large angular particle distributions.

Magnetic reconnection occurs in turbulent plasma within a large number of thin current sheets as recently observed in near-Earth space. Numerical simulations indicate that such reconnection is important for charged particle heating and non-thermal acceleration. Yet in situ evidence of particle energization during turbulent reconnection is scarce and the detailed acceleration mechanisms are poorly understood from an experimental point of view. Here we present Cluster spacecraft observations of reconnection in the near-Earth turbulent solar wind and magnetosheath and discuss preliminary results on particle energization mechanisms therein.

The SIS instrument is part of the Energetic Particle Detector (EPD) suite for the Solar Orbiter spacecraft. The EPD will provide a full range of measurements for energetic electrons, energetic protons, and energetic heavy ions, where SIS will provide observations of He-Fe for an energy range from just above the solar wind up to several MeV/nucleon. SIS identifies particle species and energy by time-of-flight by energy technique, and is based on the ACE/ULEIS design. Particles are detected when they pass through the entrance foil and deposit their energy in one solid state detector pixel at the back of the instrument. When the ion passes through the entrance-, mid-, and detector-foils secondary electrons are emitted, accelerated to ~1 kV, and directed via isochronous mirrors onto microchannel plate stacks to provide a time-of-flight measurement. The very high mass resolution of m/σ_m ~ 50 will allow SIS to measure particle populations with ³He/⁴He ratios down to <1%.

High energy electron beams are produced during solar flares and propagate through the inhomogeneous plasma of the solar corona. The production of Langmuir waves, which are strongly affected by density gradients, is therefore an important consideration for the evolution of these beams. We consider the treatment of Langmuir wave evolution in a plasma with long length-scale density fluctuations using a diffusive approximation, and calculate the diffusion coefficients. We use 1-D simulations to follow the time-evolution of the Langmuir waves and the effects of this on the electron beam, for a broad range of beam and plasma parameters. Beam generated Langmuir waves also give rise to Type III radio bursts, allowing remote observations of these electrons. The effects of the Langmuir wave evolution on the brightness and spectrum of these bursts will also be considered.

We use a modified wavelet transformation to analyze ACE MAG data for the rate of occurrence of magnetic fluctuations. We analyze the magnetic field data for amplitude and width of individual waves and obtain distributions of occurring amplitudes and their dependence on the wave’s frequency and phase. In the analyzed frequency range from 0.0001 to 0.5 Hz we find an exponential distribution of wave amplitudes. The average wave amplitude increases with decreasing frequency and increasing solar activity. We find a significant fraction of large amplitude waves, which do not agree with the assumption of quasilinear theory that the irregularities of the magnetic field are sufficiently small and therefore the changes of an energetic particles pitch angle are also small.

Since the recent launch of radiometers such as PROBA2/LYRA and SDO/EVE/ESP, high cadence solar irradiance measurements are now accessible in new wavebands, especially in Extreme Ultra-Violet (EUV). Taking advantage of these new possibilities, we recently reported quasi-periodic pulsations (QPPs) that occurred during the impulsive phase of the X2.2 flare on 15 February 2011 (Dolla et al., 2012). During this event, we observed oscillation-like fluctuations with about an 11 s period, simultaneously in several wavebands in hard and soft X-rays, microwaves and EUV. However, imaging such QPP events at sufficient cadence is still not possible with present instruments. We could only locate the QPP source using Nobeyama radio data, which nevertheless offer lower spatial resolution than EUV or X-ray images. Besides, the radio sources probably differ from the EUV or X-ray sources. We present some QPP observations and their importance for the physics of flares; then we discuss the requirements for future imagers to actually “see” the QPP that are believed to occur during the rising phase of most flares.

This study focuses on the analysis of one prominence eruption and the associated Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) detected by SOHO/UVCS and /LASCO and by STEREO/EUVI and /COR1 instruments on May 20, 2007. The event was a partial-halo CME; the source active region (AR NOAA 10956) was located close to the solar disk center, and the eruption was accompained by a B9 class flare. It produced a very symmetric, quite faint, hemispherical white-light front observed by SOHO and STEREO coronagraphs (at that time the angle between the STEREO A and B spacecrafts was about 8.8°). The erupted flux-rope gave rise to a magnetic cloud, which was observed in situ by STEREO and WIND, and triggered significant geomagnetic storms since May 22. The UV spectral line emission observed by UVCS during the CME front propagation is blue-shifted up to velocities of 530 km/s (along the LOS), much larger than the velocities on the plane of the sky as inferred from LASCO/C2 images (290 km/s). The kinetic temperature of the Oxygen ions in the CME front derived from O VI 1031Å/1037Å doublet line profiles is about 9 MK, lower than the kinetic temperature of the undisturbed pre-CME corona. The 3D reconstruction of the expanding front with pB ratio technique, GCS model applied to STEREO/COR1 and SOHO/LASCO data and the 3D reconstruction of prominence trajectory via triangulation technique are complemented for the first time by constraints on the 3D expansion provided by the UVCS spectra.

Previous statistical studies of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) and 3-D reconstructions of Interplanetary CME trajectories demonstrate that the propagation velocity of solar eruptions tends to converge towards the solar wind velocity; this effect is usually explained in terms of a magnetic drag force. Even if the drag force becomes important in the CME dynamic, with respect to the Lorentz and gravitational forces, likely only at large altitudes, measurements of the drag coefficent in the intermediate corona are missing so far. In this work we studied the 3-D trajectories of falling plasma blobs observed after the huge solar eruption of June 7, 2011. Blob's trajectories have been studied with J-maps, and reconstructed via triangulation and polarization ratio techniques. Blobs densities derived with COR1 images have been corrected for the contribution due to the H-α emission. Results show that the drag coeffient C_d varies between 0.3 and 3.0 and that the drag force acting on the falling blobs is a factor 0.45-0.75 smaller than the gravitational force. If these drag forces are the same affecting not only the CME interplanetary evolution, but also their early evolution, our results suggest that the magnetic drag should be considered even in the CME initiation modeling. Hence, this result has potentially implications on the study of the CME evolution in the intermediate corona.

Accelerated electrons from solar flares are known to produce X-rays in the chromosphere and radio emission in the corona and interplanetary medium. For many flares we observe both X-rays and radio at the same time, insinuating a common acceleration region for upward and downward propagating electron beams. Using the RHESSI catalogue of solar flares and the PHOENIX catalogue of radio bursts, we selected a list of events with impulsive X-ray emission associated in time with type III emission in the decimetric range. We furthermore selected events for which spatially resolved information was provided by the Nancay Radioheliograph in the 450-150 MHz range. We investigate the percentage of decimetric/metric type III bursts which have a counterpart at lower frequencies (14 - 1 MHz) observed with Wind/Waves. Using the X-ray observations, we will discuss the electron beam characteristics which affect the relationship between coronal and interplanetary type III bursts. Moreover, we will use simultaneous radio and X-ray images to deduce the role of the local coronal environment.

For a series of solar flares we use X-ray and radio wavelengths to infer properties about accelerated electrons in an effort to estimate characteristics of flare acceleration regions. We selected a list of events using the RHESSI catalogue of flares and the PHOENIX 2 catalogue of type III bursts. We find that some events show a very good anti-correlation between the hard X-ray spectral index and the starting frequency of type III radio bursts. We use this information to constrain the distance that an outwardly propagating electron beam can travel before it becomes unstable to Langmuir wave growth. Assuming a background density model we then infer the height and vertical extend of a variety of different solar flare acceleration regions. We then check the validity of our predictions using simultaneous images from RHESSI and the Nançay Radioheliograph.

The process of magnetic reconnection is widely understood to be responsible for releasing the stored magnetic energy that drives solar coronal eruptions. However, most analytical treatments of reconnection have been developed in symmetric frameworks and, therefore, cannot account for the effects of the highly asymmetric coronal magnetic fields that are typical during solar eruptions. These asymmetric fields have significant consequences for the internal structure of the reconnecting current sheet, which, in turn, affects the structure and energetics of the eruption. Here we present a fully asymmetric analytical model of reconnection using the framework of the Lin & Forbes eruption model. We find that for steady-state solutions the x-line and flow stagnation point are not co-located except when the variation of the external field is very close to symmetric near the point of maximum external pressure, or the pinch point. We also find that both the x-line and stagnation point should be located low in the corona throughout the course of an eruption. We briefly compare our results to observations of eruptions by SWAP/PROBA2 and AIA/SDO and discuss how observations by the upcoming Solar Orbiter mission could be used to help answer important questions about reconnection during flares.

We investigated 3He-rich solar energetic particle (SEP) events in the current solar cycle starting in 2009 through the current date. Both 3He-rich and CME-related events are included. Simultaneous measurements from the ULEIS instrument on ACE, and SIT instruments on STEREO spacecraft are used to determine the spatial properties and origin of 3He-rich events. During the last solar cycle, we found an unexpected upper limit of the 3He fluence, while none is observed for 4He. The unexpected fluence distributions provide important constraints on possible acceleration processes. One of the interpretations is that only limited number of energetic 3He ions can be released from the Sun in a SEP event since the 3He originates in compact regions. Thus, the upper limit on the 3He fluence that we observed may be giving us information on the maximum size of the 3He acceleration region. In this paper, we will review the 3He observations so far in this solar cycle and examine the measurement requirement of this important isotope.

In this study, the intermittent behavior of the density fluctuations in the fast solar wind is reported. The tails of the distributions do not follow a Gaussian statistics since the largest events have a probability to happen much higher than that they would have if they were normally distributed. Moreover, this feature becomes more and more evident as shorter and shorter scales are considered. By using the flatness factor as an indicator of the degree of intermittency, the radial evolution of intermittency between 0.3 and 1.0 AU on the ecliptic plane is investigated. The results show that the radial evolution of intermittency of density fluctuations is different from that of magnetic field and velocity fluctuations. The degree of intermittency of the density fluctuations indeed decreases with the increasing heliocentric distance. Furthermore, the spectral break shown by each spectrum of the fast wind density fluctuations, separating a low-frequency 1/f² scaling from a less steep scaling at larger frequencies, moves to higher and higher frequency as the heliocentric distance increases. Finally, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test shows that the correlation between successive intermittent events decreases with the heliocentric distance, approaching a Poisson nature at 1.0 AU. The intermittent events exhibit a clear density-magnetic field anti-correlation. The characteristics attributed to the intermittent events of the interplanetary density fluctuations are all pointing to a likely association with slow MHD waves, likely generated via parametric decay of the energy of the outward Alfvén waves.

High temporal resolution measurements provided by the Solar Wind Analyzer (SWA) onboard the Solar Orbiter spacecraft will improve this kind of studies, extending the investigation also out of the ecliptic. Furthermore, by performing simultaneous remote-sensing of the corona and in-situ measurements of the properties of the solar wind emanating from the source regions, Solar Orbiter will be able to distinguish between spatial and temporal fluctuations, thus allowing to determine whether the observed density intermittent events are due to propagating MHD waves or are locally generated by nonlinear interactions and carried out by the solar wind.

The Proton/Alfa sensor of Solar orbiter - a part of SWA instrument - suite will perform full 3-D measurements of the Velocity Distribution Function (VDF) of solar wind protons and alpha particles, from 200 eV/q to 20 keV/q, in ~ 1 s (96 energy steps, 9 polar and 11 azimuth angles). After moment computation and data compression, the VDF will be downloaded routinely at a cadence of 4 s. This normal mode will be completed by various burst modes. A peak tracking technique will be implemented to identify the bulk of the solar wind. By limiting the analysis to a reduced number of energies and polar angles, focussed on the VDF peak, (for example, 32 energies and 5 polar angles), higher time resolutions will be reached (6 Hz for 32x5x11, ~12 Hz for 24x3x11 and ~40 hz for 2D sampling). Depending on the science target, full coverage of the phase space (96x9x11) at 1 Hz resolution or one of the fast modes will be chosen. In normal operation, burst snapshots of 8 s duration will be performed each 300 s, in conjunction with snapshots from other in-situ instruments. Depending on telemetry resources, additional bursts with longer durations will be implemented.

A central question regarding solar eruptions is exactly how magnetic reconnection converts stored magnetic energy into heat, radiation, and kinetic energy. A second important question is what mechanisms trigger such eruptions and initiate the reconnection that drives them. Several models offer an explanation for these triggers. One of the proposed mechanisms is solar flux cancellation, which assumes that an initial flux rope equilibrium breaks down as a reaction to the annihilation of magnetic flux at the nearby solar surface. On August 14, 2010 a striking eruption occurred on the NW limb of the sun. SDO/HMI magnetogram observations show a significant amount of flux cancellation in the eruption region, which suggests it played a role in triggering this eruption. In this poster, we will offer a first interpretation of this event combining observations made by STEREO, SDO/AIA and PROBA2/SWAP. We discuss ongoing efforts on the modeling of this event.

We study the influence of the solar dynamo magnetic field on the buoyant rise and emergence of twisted magnetic flux-ropes, and their conbined influence on the global coronal magnetic field. We ran three-dimensional MHD numerical simulations using the ASH code and analysed the dynamical evolution of such flux-ropes from as they buoyantly rise from the bottom of the convection zone until the post-emergence phases. Our setup is calibrated to model the sun's convective zone, with well developed convection, meridional flows and differential rotation supporting a dynamo. The actual flux-emergence episode is preceded by a localised increase of radial velocity, density and current density at the surface. The properties of initial phases of the buoyant rise are determined essentially by the flux-rope's properties and the convective flows and are, in consequence, in good agreement with previous studies. The effects of the interaction of the background dynamo field become increasingly stronger as the flux-ropes evolve, nevertheless. The threshold for the initial magnetic field amplitude is slightly increased by the presence of the background dynamo field (even if it is on average much weaker than the flux-rope's field). The geometry and relative orientation of the magnetic field in the flux-ropes in respect to that in the background magnetic field influences the resulting rise speeds, zonal flows amplitudes (which develop within the flux-ropes) and surface signatures of magnetic flux emergence. This strongly constraints the morphology, duration and amplitude of the surface shearing and Poynting flux associated with magnetic flux-rope emergence, which are key ingredients to the current coronal eruption scenarios. The emerged magnetic flux is in most of our cases enough to influence the global surface magnetic field. In some cases, the emergence leads the system to a global polarity reversal while in some others it inhibits the background dynamo from doing so. The fraction of magnetic flux which remains attached to the flux-rope is slowly spread out in latitude, diffused and assimilated by the background dynamo field.

TBD

SPICE is a high resolution imaging spectrometer operating at ultraviolet wavelengths, 70.4 – 79.0 nm and 97.3 - 104.9 nm. It is a facility instrument on the Solar Orbiter mission. SPICE addresses the key science goals of Solar Orbiter by providing the quantitative knowledge of the physical state and composition of the plasmas in the solar atmosphere, in particular investigating the source regions of outflows and ejection processes which link the solar surface and corona to the heliosphere. By observing the intensities of selected lines and line profiles, SPICE will derive temperature, density, flow and composition information for the plasmas in the temperature range from 10,000 K to 10MK. The instrument consists of a normal incidence, off-axis parabola telescope feeding a normal incidence spectrometer with a Toroidal Variable Line Space grating and two intensified APS detectors. The current status of the instrument design will be presented.

We have investigated the source regions of Solar Energetic Particle (SEP) events detected simultaneously (within a few hours) by at least two of the STEREO-A, ACE or STEREO-B spacecraft between August 2010 and January 2012, when the separation angle between the spacecraft was greater than 80 degrees. We have studied 12 events. They all produced EUV waves and were associated with fast CMEs and Type II radio emission. The connecting points of the spacecraft at the solar surface were calculated using the observed solar wind speed and potential field source surface models below 2.5 Rsun. We determined the arrival time of the EUV waves to the spacecraft connection points and compare with the observed SEP onset times at 1 AU. In 3 cases sympathetic flaring at a remote site may be responsible for the wide angular spread of SEPs.

Using the SIT (Suprathermal Ion Telescope) instrument on STEREO-A we have examined the abundance of the rare isotope 3He during the rising activity phase of solar cycle 24 between January 2010 and December 2011. We have identified events with enormous abundance enhancements of 3He (3He/4He > 1) on 21 Feb 2010, 22 Oct 2010, 22 Nov 2010, 18 Feb 2011, 19 Feb 2011, 06 May 2011, and 16 Jul 2011. These events had short duration, typically ~ 0.5-1 day and most of them occurred in association with high-speed solar wind streams and corotating interaction regions. With one exception the events were not associated with energetic electrons, the signature associated with 3He-rich solar energetic particles. We have also examined the heavy-ion composition and found enhanced NeS/O and Fe/O ratios in these events. The SECCHI EUVI observations indicate that the events are generally associated with western hemisphere active regions located near the coronal hole. Combining the abundance observations from ACE and STEREO-A possible causes of the enormous 3He enrichments are discussed.

Magnetic clouds (MCs) are a subset of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs). They are important due to their internal magnetic field configuration, which resembles a magnetic flux rope, and because they represent the most geoeffective type of solar transient. In this study, we analyze their internal structure using a superposed epoch method of a large set of events detected at L1, between 1996 and 2006. We highlight the most important characteristics and compare the internal parameters with those seen in the surrounding solar wind. In particular, we are interested in the density increase seen at the trailing part of some magnetic clouds. Furthermore, we link events with their solar counterparts and compare the remote observations in EUV and white-light with the in situ data. With Solar Orbiter we will be able to do this study closer to the Sun and provide new insights into the linking of CMEs and ICMEs.

Intense Langmuir waves are observed in the solar wind in association with Type II and Type III solar bursts, interplanetary shocks, magnetic holes and other phenomena. They typically have the form of a narrowband modulated wavepacket with the wave electric field polarized linearly along the background magnetic field. The waves can be partly converted to electromagnetic radiation and this process is believed to be responsible for most natural radio emissions from the solar corona and solar wind. In this poster we show examples of observed Langmuir waves and discuss their statistical properties (amplitude, frequency, coherence length) inferred and extrapolated from previous observations at 1 AU and the limited data available from the inner heliosphere. The results of this study are being used in preparation of the Solar Orbiter Radio and Plasma Wave instrument (RPW), which will include a time domain sampler module (TDS) dedicated to the observations of those waves down to 0.3 AU. An on-board software will be used to continuously scan the data from electric antennas, identify interesting wave events for downlink and collect statistics on observed waves (as well as electric field signatures of dust particle impacts on the spacecraft). We present the design of the instrument, basic overview of the algorithms used in event identification, and the assessment of their performance on test datasets based on STEREO data.

Quiescent streamers are stable long-lived structures that have an interesting UV signature: the intensity from heavy ions (i.e. O VI) show a dimmer core relative to the edges which is not present in hydrogen emission and in white light. In this study we compare streamer observations obtained during solar minimum by the Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer (UVCS) onboard SOHO of different spectral lines such as HI Lya 1216, OVI 1032 and, for the first time, Mg X 625. In order to investigate the link between the structure of the streamer and the slow solar wind sources (i.e. the different role played by coronal heating and wind acceleration mechanisms, gravitational settling and Coulomb drag), we will also compare the data to the results of a 2.5D MHD multi fluid model of coronal streamer that includes protons, O VI and MgX ions as fluids. Moreover, the HeII emission is estimated from the multi-fluid model in order to discuss the mechanisms dependent on the charge to mass ratio and to predict the structure of the streamers in ions that will be observed by the Multi Element Telescope for Imaging and Spectroscopy (METIS) on board Solar Orbiter.

In this contribution we outline our progress in calibrating the RPW antenna system onboard Solar Orbiter. The sensor consists of cylindrical antennas (ANT) mounted on booms extruding from the central body of the spacecraft. Calibration in this context means finding the true reception properties of the applied antenna system and investigating the influence of the connected receiver hardware. The overall performance of a scientific radio and plasma wave instrument depends crucially on the knowledge of the true properties of the connected antenna system, as the typical spaceborne multiport scatterer is subject to significant parasitic influence. The main contributors affecting the antennas are the conducting spacecraft body and other large structures such as the solar panels in close vicinity. Currently we are investigating the antenna characteristics by conducting numerical EM field calculations using electromagnetic codes and by measuring the 3D reception properties in an anechoic chamber using a scale model. Here we outline the first numerical calculation results, the effective axes and length, as well as the impedance matrix for the quasi‑static range and we prove an outlook for higher frequencies.

Electron scale solar wind (SW) turbulence has attracted great interest in recent years. Clear evidences have been given from the Cluster data that turbulence is not fully dissipated near the proton scale but continues cascading down to the electron scales. However, the scaling of the energy spectra as well as the nature of the plasma modes involved at those small scales are still not fully known. Here we survey available burst mode data from Cluster search-coil magnetometer (SCM) (0.5Hz < f_sc < 225Hz) from 2001 to 2011 and perform a statistical survey of the magnetic energy spectra in the quiet SW. We discuss the exponential versus power-law scaling of the power spectra below the electron scale and compare to recent published work on the subject. We furthermore emphasize several caveats related to instrumental and signal processing issues that need to be considered in view of better interpreting the observations. We discuss the implications of the results on the physical mechanisms and the theoretical modeling of energy dissipation in the SW.

During the solar minimum of activity, the large scale solar magnetic field is close to a dipole field. To characterize the configuration of the open field near the Sun surface, two quantities can be used: the magnetic pole location where the field lines are perpendicular to the surface and the magnetic opening. Since solar plumes trace out the open magnetic field line, we measure the magnetic pole location and the magnetic opening by identifying plumes in North and South polar cap. The plumes identification is done by performing the Hough-wavelet transform in a series of STEREO/EUVI images at 17.1nm. The magnetic poles locations and the magnetic opening are then identified during one year in 2007-2008. The results show a temporal variation probably due to flux emergence on the surface of the Sun. To explain this temporal variation we consider a Sun's open magnetic flux model and compare the observations.

Magnetic reconnection occurs in turbulent plasma within a large number of volume-lling thin current sheets. Such reconnection plays an important role for dissipating the magnetic energy of turbulent plasma, resulting in substantial particle heating and non-thermal acceleration. Yet the detailed properties of thin current sheets and associated reconnection are poorly understood from an experimental point of view due to the scarcity of in situ observations. Here we present a study of the properties of thin current sheets detected in the Earth's magnetosheath downstream of the quasi-parallel shock, by using data from the Cluster mission. We study the distribution of current sheets as a function of the magnetic shear angle  and found that high shear ( > 90 degrees) current sheets show dierent properties with respect to low shear current sheets ( < 90 degrees). The number of high-shear current sheets is about ~20% of the total. The detailed analysis of several high-shear current sheets indicates ongoing reconnection therein. This analysis, together with the observed occurrence rate of high-shear current sheets, suggests that about ~20% of all observed current sheets contribute to the dissipation of turbulent plasma.

We present a mechanism for the formation of the low frequency 1/f magnetic spectrum based on numerical solutions of a shell-RMHD model of the turbulent dynamics inside the sub-Alfvénic solar wind. We assign reasonably realistic profiles to the wind speed and the density along the radial direction, and a radial magnetic field. Alfvén waves of short periodicity (600 s) are injected in the chromosphere, penetrate into the corona and are partially reflected, thus triggering a turbulent cascade. The cascade is strong for the reflected wave while it is weak for the outward propagating waves. At the Alfvénic critical point the magnetic field has a perpendicular power-law spectrum with slope close to the Kolmogorov −5/3. The parallel spectrum is inherited from the frequency spectrum of large (perpendicular) eddies. The shape is a double power-law with slopes of about −1 and −2 at low and high frequencies respectively, the position of the break depending on the injected spectrum. We suggest that the double power-law spectrum measured by Helios at 0.3 AU, where the average magnetic field is not aligned with the radial (contrary to our assumptions) results from the combination of such different spectral slopes. At low frequency the parallel spectrum dominates with its characteristic 1/f shape, while at higher frequencies its steep spectral slope (−2) is masked by the more energetic perpendicular spectrum (slope −5/3).

SO/PHI, Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager, is one of the remote sensing instruments that will go on board the ESA/NASA Solar Orbiter mission. It is being developed by an international consortium of institutions: Germany, Spain, Fance, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, USA, Australia.

The instrument comprises two telescopes: High Resolution Telescope (HRT) and Full Disk Telescope (FDT), providing different fields of view and spatial resolutions. It is based on the use of a LiNbO3 etalon for spectral analysis (the selected observation wavelength is the FeI line at 6173 Angstroms, with a Landé factor of 2.5) and on polarization modulation through liquid crystal variable retarders (LCVRs) for polarimetric analysis.

The high complexity of the instrument along with the mission itself, that will operate in a variety of distances and will undergo huge thermal gradients, makes it advisable to develop a software simulator of the instrument, SOPHISM, to reproduce the observational scenarios, support design decissions, perform tolerance tests and identify potential underperformances of the different elements of SO/PHI. The results from the simulator will also help serving as input for the onboard data pipeline software. The simulator reproduces all the optical elements of the instrument (lenses, correlation tracker, etalon, LCVRs, detectors) as well as some influences from the spacecraft (e.g. jittering). A second part of the simulator will deal with the software area of the instrument, taking into account data compression, bit truncation, RTE inversion code, etc. Deviations from nominal behaviour, such as instrumental polarization due to thermal effects, etc are also included.

This work shows examples of such analyses from simulation runs, based on MHD simulations. We present the impact of uncertainties on PHI elements on the expected scientific performance of PHI and strategies to overcome them through the onboard software.

Type III radio bursts are frequently observed by the STEREO/Waves instrument. These solar emissions are produced by beams of suprathermal electrons escaping the corona along open magnetic field lines. We have developed a goniopolarimetric (GP, also referred to as direction-finding) inversion using the Singular Value Decomposition (SVD) technique for electric measurements on three non-orthogonal antennas. We have found an empirical relation between apparent source sizes and spectral matrices decomposed by SVD. Abovementioned techniques have been extensively tested on data obtained by the High Frequency Receiver (HFR, a part of S/Waves). We have performed statistical analysis of a large number of intense and simple type III radio bursts observed by STEREO between May 2007 and September 2011. We have found that the maximum flux density occurs around 1 MHz which corresponds to a radio source located approximately at 8 solar radii according to Sittler & Guhathakurta (1999) model. The apparent source size is very extended (around 40 degrees) for frequencies below 500 kHz while remaining almost constant (25 degrees) between 500 kHz and 2 MHz.

It has been observed that a magnetic cloud is able to exclude partially the low energy cosmic rays population by affecting to the propagation conditions of cosmic rays into the magnetic cloud structure. Also solar energetic particles can be strongly affected in their propagation by the magnetic cloud presence. This effect is commonly noted by mean a decrease in the energetic particle, cosmic or solar, fluxes. The two twin spacecrafts, HELIOS A and HELIOS B, explored the inner heliosphere between 0.29 AU and 1 AU from the mid 1970's to early 1980's. The E6 Experiment aboard Helios is the energetic particle detector able to measure electron, protons and alphas in the range of 300 keV to energies higher than 50 MeV. In this work we studied the short term decreases observed in the counts of the E6 Anticoincidence and Cherenkov detectors during a magnetic cloud passage. A pool of 40 events has been compiled splitting them into four categories depending on the observed response in both detectors and focusing our attention on those event which seem to be free of high energy solar energetic particle contamination (29 cases). The shape and depth are studied in terms of the solar wind and magnetic field properties of the magnetic cloud.

The relative locations of the STEREO, SOHO, SDO and Venus Express spacecraft in August 2010 provide an opportunity for unique multi-spacecraft observations of two CMEs originating from the same solar source region. On 7 August 2010, a halo CME originating from NOAA AR11093 is observed remotely by STEREO B. Seven days later this active region erupts again, and a halo CME is observed remotely by STEREO A on 14 August 2010.

We show that both eruptions are associated with reverse S-shaped flux rope structures and display a number of typical large-scale features relating to CMEs, including coronal dimmings and EUV waves. By combining remote sensing and in situ observations of the ejecta, we consider the structure and heliospheric evolution of these CMEs and their interplanetary counterparts.

Our estimate of the dimensionless expansion rate of the 14 August 2010 magnetic cloud suggests that this structure may be perturbed by a high speed stream, likely to originate from a coronal hole. Consequently, we address the influence of the surrounding solar wind on the in situ observations of both ICMEs. Additionally, a comparison of the orientations of the axes of the erupting flux ropes near the Sun and in interplanetary space reveals that both CMEs appear to undergo significant rotation as they expand into the heliosphere.

We compare and contrast many aspects of these two eruptions from a remote sensing and in situ perspective, before discussing the evolutionary implications of the similarities and differences between the ejecta.

The High-Energy Telescope (HET) on ESA’s Solar Orbiter mission will measure electrons from 300 keV up to about 30 MeV, protons from 10 to 100 MeV and heavy ions from approximately 20 to 200 MeV/nuc. These measurement capabilities are reached by a combination of solid-state tracking detectors and a scintillator calorimeter. This setup can perform particle identification via the dE/dx vs total E technique. The scintillator approach provides a good resolution over the complete energy range but in order to retrieve the correct energy deposition one has to take the crystal quenching into account which lowers the light output depending on the type and energy of incident particle.
We measured the crystal response for different ion species and energies and compared them to simulated values for the energy deposition. The simulations were carried out using the GEANT4 toolkit provided by CERN. We were able to calculate quenching factors for the BGO crystal for ions up to iron which are of great interest for later data analysis with the HET telescope.

One of the purposes of the Solar Orbiter mission will be to study the way the solar wind is propelled. A better understanding of the slow and fast wind streams and their variations together with a better knowledge of the magnetic field generated by the solar dynamo will allow us to analyze the role played by the Sun on planetary magnetospheres. A few years ago, a stereoscopic study of the Jovian radio emissions on hectometer wavelengths (HOM) [Galopeau & Boudjada 2005] showed that this radiation presents fluctuations similar to those of the solar wind with a time lag of 153 days. This study is based on the combination of simultaneous Galileo/PWS and Wind/WAVES observations of the HOM flux density from 31 August 1996 until 24 October 1996. Periodic features in the HOM emission were found to occur at some specific Jovian longitudes (at CML near 45° and 180°) where Mauk et al [1997] detected (from the Galileo/EPD experiment) injections of charged particles into Jupiter's inner magnetosphere. The remote-sensing measurements of the Radio and Plasma Waves experiment (RPW) on board Solar Orbiter should allow to study the fundamental characteristics of the electrostatic and electromagnetic phenomena occurring in the solar wind and interacting with planetary magnetic fields.

Many aspects of Solar System science are related and there is an increasing desire to address science problems that span disciplinary boundaries. The advent of the Internet and other advances in technology mean that providing access to data is no longer a major issue, however, combining and comparing observations from the different domains is more difficult that it should be, partly because the communities have evolved independently without any consideration of the need for interoperability.

The Solar Orbiter project is starting to think about the data that will be produced within the project - in doing so it needs to consider how they will be handled and used both internally and in a wider research environment. By adopting best practices and following some simple rules it is possible to improve the quality of the data and make them easier to use by groups not associated with the project. Extending these principles to capabilities that are developed to facilitate the project means that they will become interoperable with existing capabilities enriching the environment available to the use community.

CASSIS, the Coordination Action of the integration of Solar System Infrastructures and Science, has been examining these issues and investigating how interoperability could be improved by the adoption of standards for data and interfaces. It is in the process of formulating guidelines that we believe could be beneficial to the Solar Orbiter project in this stage of the development of its data system.

The Solar Orbiter project has the chance to break new ground by trying from the outset to develop the elements that it needs as part of an infrastructure that is designed to be interoperable. To assist the process, CASSIS is proposing that it should suggest possible solutions for decisions have to be made - if done correctly this will save time and effort and result in a better product; it could also provide a template for future projects.

We will outline some of our proposals and welcome discussion.

We investigate the role of kinetic instabilities driven by a proton anisotropy on the onset of magnetic reconnection by means of 2-D hybrid simulations. The collisionless tearing of a current sheet is studied in the presence of a proton temperature anisotropy in the surrounding plasma. Our results confirm that anisotropic protons within the current sheet region can significantly enhance/stabilize the tearing instability of the current. Moreover, fluctuations associated to linear instabilities excited by large proton temperature anisotropies can significantly influence the stability of the plasma and perturb the current sheets, producing a nonlinear trigger of the tearing instability. We find that such a nonlinear interaction leads to a faster tearing evolution in the T⊥ > T∥ regime when an ion-cyclotron instability is generated by the anisotropic proton distribution functions. On the contrary, in the presence of the opposite anisotropy, fire hose fluctuations excited by the unstable background protons with T∥ < T⊥ are not able to efficiently destabilize current sheets, which remain stable for a long time after fire hose saturation. We discuss possible influences of this novel nonlinear process on the solar wind and heliospheric plasma dynamics.

The electron distribution in the solar wind has 3 components – a Maxwellian or thermal core, which generally isotropic, a isotropic suprathermal “halo” population existing at higher energy, which can be described by a kappa distribution, and the strahl - a beam of higher-still energy electrons that travels away from the Sun along the interplanetary magnetic field. The strahl can also be described by a kappa distribution. Current theories suggest the halo population is formed through pitch angle scattering of the strahl, so the presence or otherwise of each of these three populations can provide information about the evolution of the solar wind as it propagates through the heliosphere. To date there have been few observations of the solar wind electron distribution that include the higher energy, suprathermal, components made outside the orbit of Jupiter.

Here we use data from CAPS-ELS, flying on Cassini, to characterise the electron distribution that was measured upstream of Saturn while the Cassini was on approach to the planet. We find that the measured distribution does contain one or more suprathermal components measurable above instrument background levels, with a higher phase space density in the direction one would expect the strahl to be observed, although it cannot yet be confirmed that this distribution conforms to the core-halo-strahl structure observed closer to the Sun.

The SupraThermal Electrons, Ions and Neutrals (STEIN) sensor is part of the Energetic Particle Detector (EPD) instrument suite on Solar Orbiter. EPD is intended to provide measurements of energetic particle spectra across a wide range of energies and particle species.

The STEIN sensor will provide EPD's lowest energy measurements for electrons, ions and neutral particles from a few keV up to 100 keV. Its two telescopes will enable detection of sunward and anti-sunward particle fluxes. Each telescope features several solid state detector (SSD) pixels and an electrostatic deflection system. This combination allows to determine pitch-angle distributions and anisotropies of incident charged particles.

We present the design of the sensor along with studies of the angular detector response. This allows us to predict the performance of STEIN to measure velocity distributions of solar wind superhalo electrons, and electrons accelerated in solar particle events.

Solar Orbiter’s payload initially included a total solar irradiance (TSI) monitor. Out of the ecliptic observations of the solar radiative output indeed allow to address several fundamental questions: Are the solar irradiance variations observed from Earth due to flux redistributions in space or to solar luminosity variations ? Does the radiative output differ between the poles and the equator ? Why does the TSI vary so little as compared to that of Sun-like stars ?

Unfortunately, no instrument so far has observed the TSI or the spectral irradiance from a vantage point other than the Earth. However, major progress has been made in modelling the TSI with semi-empirical models that rely on solar surface magnetism to reconstruct the solar spectrum and its variability. Here, we use such a semi-empirical irradiance model to estimate the TSI for the full 3D heliosphere, from June 2010 till today. From this, we are able to derive the solar luminosity.

Our results show that observers with different orbital inclinations experience various levels of irradiance, but the variability in the TSI remains comparable to that observed at Earth. Significant differences between different vantage points arise when there are hemispheric asymmetries in solar active regions. These effects are important for future missions that will go out of the ecliptic plane. However, they are not sufficient to drive observed millenial climate variations through orbital inclination changes. The variability of the luminosity, which differs from that of the TSI, will be discussed and recent results on the 3D reconstruction of the spectrally resolved irradiance (rather than just the TSI) will be presented.

Low frequency solar and interplanetary radio bursts are generated at frequencies below the ionospheric plasma cutoff and must therefore be measured in space, with deployable antenna systems. We present a new radio direction-finding technique that separates the problem of deriving the source direction from that of a determination of polarization. The crux of the method is to first determine the source direction independently of concerns as to its polarization. Once the source direction is known, its direct characterization in terms of Stokes vectors in a single iteration, if desired, is relatively simple. This study applies the source-direction determination to radio signatures of flares received by STEREO. We studied a radio type-II burst, obtaining the direction of arrival of the radio emission and compared the obtained positions with white-light observations.

Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is carried out to identify global patterns in the solar background magnetic field (SBMF) obtained by WSO in cycles 21-23 and sunspot magnetic field obtained by SOHO/MDI in cycle 23. PCA analysis reveals two main temporal PCs in SBMF of the opposite polarities originating in the opposite hemispheres and running noticeably off-phase (with about a two and half year delay), with their maximums overlapping in the most active hemisphere for a given cycle. Their maximum magnitudes are reduced by factor 3 from cycle 21 to 23 overlapping in the Northern hemisphere for cycle 21, the Southern one in cycle 22 and in the Northern again in cycle 23. The reduction of magnitudes and slopes of the maximums of the SBMF waves from cycle 21 towards cycle 23 leads us to expect lower magnitudes of the SBMF wave in cycle 24. Also PCA allowed us to detect 4 pairs of empirical orthogonal functions (EOFs) in the SBMF latitudinal components: the two main latitudinal ones attributed to symmetric and another three pairs assigned to the asymmetric types of meridional flows. The results indicate the existence of dipole and quadruple (or triple dipole) magnetic structures in the SBMF taking the form of two waves travelling off phase, with a phase shift of one quarter of the cycle period. (Zharkova et al, 2012, MNRAS) Similar PC components were found in temporal and latitudinal distributions of the sunspot magnetic field for cycle 23 revealing the polarities opposite to the SBMF polarities and double maximum in time or maximums in latitude corresponding to the maximums of the SBMF PC residuals or minimums in SBMF EOFs, respectively. The latitudinal EOFs are interpreted by using the modified two-layer model of Parker’s dynamo with meridional flows and the dynamo parameters are derived for each cycle and the total set (Popova et al., 2012) allowing us to derive a noticeable decrease of dynamo action from cycle 21 towards the cycle 23 and beyond.

We assume that the HCS has ongoing magnetic reconnection induced by some external forces and investigate with full kinetic particle-in-cell (PIC) approach particle dynamics in magnetic field configurations deduced from the solar wind observations. This approach showed that electrons and protons/ions, are separated at acceleration in the current sheet with respect to its midplane. The model reproduces rather closely magnitudes of electron and proton velocities gained at acceleration in the HCS and it explains the asymmetric distributions of proton velocities measured across the sector boundary by their motion along the polarisation electric field induced by these separated protons and electrons. We also show that the populations of the same change are divided on ’transit’ and ’bounced’ particles depending on the side where particles entered the sheet and where they are to be ejected. The distributions of ’transit’ and bounced protons allow to interpret the measured distributions of particle densities across the heliospheric current sheet to explain often observed medalion-like pitch angle distributions of electrons with respect to the sector boundary. Possible triggers of a reconnection process in the HCS are discussed.

We present studies of flares associated with both sunquakes and CMEs as observed by SOHO/MDI, SDO, LASCO and STEREO and compare the energy and momenta carried upwards and downwards flaring atmospheres. The observational results are probed by the recently developed theory of seismic response formation cause by geometric caustics formed by moving sources (Zharkov, 2012, MNRAS). We consider a few types of moving sources caused by hydrodynamic responses of flaring atmospheres to the injection of different kinds of particles (electron beams, proton beams and mixed beams) and evaluate their applicability to the derived observed features.

AC and DC magnetic field instruments are now increasingly often accommodated on the same boom in order to meet mass constraints. Recently, we have carried out extensive tests between several fluxgate and search-coil magnetometers in preparation of the Solar Orbiter and Solar Probe Plus missions. Our objective was to understand and quantify the mutual interference on each sensor. Here, we summarize the main results, discuss the lessons that were learned and give recommendations for future missions.

The properties of Helium in the corona provide diagnostics of the acceleration mechanisms of the solar wind. EUI and METIS on board Solar Orbiter will have overlapping He II 30.4 nm channels that will make seamless measurements from the limb to the outer corona. The Herschel sounding rocket launched in September 2009 embarked HECOR and SCORE, two demonstrators of the Orbiter instruments. We present the observations of the HElium CORonagraph. HECOR served as a test bed for EUI/FSI and obtained images at 30.4 nm from 1.2 to 3 Rs. A variety of structure is observed, including polar plumes up to 1.7 Rs. A detailed analysis of the passband content shows that above about 1.5 Rs, the measured intensities are consistent with a model of resonant scattering from singly ionized helium. We discuss the HECOR results on the properties of He+ in the corona based on the analysis of its resonantly scattered emission.

We present simulations of coronal loops whose footpoints get twisted by localized vortical motions. The linear and nonlinear dynamics are investigated in the reduced magnetohydrodynamic regime in Cartesian geometry. Initially a uniform and strong magnetic field threads the volume between two photospheric planes, where a localized vortex is applied. The coronal magnetic field-lines get twisted and the system is unstable to the internal kink mode. We find that the linear and nonlinear evolution depends critically on the shape of the photospheric vortex. The first stage of the dynamics is a classical kink instability and this work extends the results of previous simulations.

Typically this kind of investigations use as initial conditions smooth fields and flux-tubes. But previous investigations of coronal dynamics indicate that in the coronal fields fluctuations are naturally present at all scales. Therefore in order to understand the effect of a photospheric vortex on a more realistic corona, we continue the simulations after kink instability sets in developing turbulent fields in the corona.

In the nonlinear stage the system never returns to the simple initial state with ordered twisted field-lines and kink instability does not occur again. Nevertheless field-lines get twisted, but in a disordered way, and energy accumulates on large scales through an inverse cascade. This energy can then be released in micro-flares or larger flares, when interaction with neighboring structures occur or with other mechanisms. The impact on coronal dynamics and CMEs is discussed.

Coronal ions offer a fascinating insight into coronal heating and wind acceleration because of the extreme observed diversity in their anisotropic temperatures and outflow velocities. The Solar Orbiter, with its complement of remote-sensing and in-situ instrumentation, will provide an ideal platform for systematic observations of several coronal ions including singly ionized helium. He II 30.37nm, spectroscopy from the METIS coronagraph and spectrograph, and HeII imaging from EUI/FSI will provide unique information on the properties of the the coronal He+ in the solar wind. We present simulations of the expected capabilities of the METIS HeII spectrograph in detecting for the first time anisotropic velocity distributions of He+ (He II 30.37nm) and Si+10 (SiXI, 30.33 nm) ions.

We consider individual Type III bursts simultaneously observed, respectively, by URAP and WAVES experiments on-board Ulysses and Wind spacecraft. The combine of both space instruments allows us to cover a frequency range from 14 MHz down to a few kHz. We analyze selected events which have particular spectral features as observed by Ulysses spacecraft at frequencies lower than 20 kHz. Hence some Type III bursts exhibit during the burst time duration an important cut off frequency variation, of about 20%, and others reveal the presence of double structures. We discuss in this contribution the origin of such spectral features which may be interpreted as an effect of the plasma environment close to Ulysses spacecraft, or an overlapping of two solar bursts generated in two different interplanetary locations. The use of WAVES experiment observations leads us to estimate the source region locations of those Type III bursts in particular those which extended towards higher frequencies (more than 5 MHz).

We are developing a science observation planning tool for SoloHI that runs under IDL. In the present stage of development, the tool utilizes the SPICE orbit kernels for the spacecraft and other solar system bodies (planets, other spacecraft, comets, etc.) to display the orbits in an interactive 3D environment. The tool can also find and visualize in 3D various orbit “events” such as orbit segments inside 0.5 AU, perihelion, and angular separations (e.g. 90 degrees from Earth). The user can step through the visualization in the 3D environment using arrow keys, save individual frames or save the segments as a movie. In the future, a separate SoloHI field-of-view window will show the locations and motions of other solar system objects that fall in the field-of-view, again using the objects SPICE kernels.

Time series of synthetic data for SO/PHI are much needed to prepare for the helioseismology aspects of the Solar Orbiter mission. Starting from recent simulations of realistic solar convection, we carry out calculations of spectral line profiles using the SPINOR code and simulate the instrument using the SOPHISM code. The resulting synthetic data cover a small patch of the solar surface and are appropriate for planning data-analysis strategies for local helioseismology.

Sunpy is a framework using Python (an open-source programming language) where solar physicist can read, display and analyse solar data. Though Sunpy is relatively new, it has grown quite fast having already support for studying solar images, analysis of light curve data (eg, GOES) and processing of radio dynamic spectra (eg STEREO/SWAVES). Also it has support for querying the Virtual Solar Observatory and there is an early stage of a graphic user interface (GUI) already implemented. This poster gives an introduction of how to use some of these functions and it focuses on the analysis (download/pre-processing/study) of a solar radio burst observed from the e-CALLISTO network. The e-CALLISTO network is form by 15 stations around the world with a central data-base at ETH (Zurich) that monitors the Sun 24/7 in the range of 10-400 MHz. Using SunPy for the analysis of this instrument will help also to promote the use of this data to scientist that cannot afford expensive software licenses.

Modelling the solar spectrum in the UV/EUV has important scientific relevance. Calculating line ratios to derive properties of the solar plasma from the chromosphere to the corona is one important aspect. We will present calculations of line ratios in the UV/EUV using the SolMod code and compare it to existing values. This will allow us to validate the code along with the atomic data as well as the employed models of the solar atmosphere. In a next step it will also allow us to extend the tool to employ it for further diagnostics of the various layers of the solar atmosphere. Improving the possibilities to derive the properties of the solar atmosphere is a very important step for the analysis of the data that will be obtained by SPICE onboard the upcoming Solar Orbiter mission.

Modeling the variations of the solar spectrum is important step for our understanding the driving mechanisms for solar irradiance variations. We present latest results to reconstruct irradiance changes in the UV/EUV. Our modeling approach is based on the segmentation analyses of solar images as taken by SOHO/EIT. Furthermore, with the code SolMod we calculate spectra for various coronal features. These spectra are then weighted by the area coverage of the various features, which leads to the time-dependent UV/EUV spectrum. We will present latest results and compare it to available data. These results are important for the data that will be obtained with the EUI instrument onboard the upcoming ESA/NASA mission Solar Orbiter.

We test the reliability of magnetic field inversions based on Stokes filtergrams using the characteristics of the HMI instrument on SDO as an example. The same method can be applied to PHI on Solar Orbiter once its spectral response function is known. We use the output of high-resolution 3D, time-dependent, radiative magneto-hydrodynamics simulations (two based on the MURaM code, one on the CO5BOLD code) to calculate Stokes profiles Fi(,x,y; i=I, V, Q, U) for the Fe I 6173 Å line for snapshots of a sunspot, a plage area and an enhanced network region. Stokes filtergrams are constructed for the 6 nominal HMI wavelengths by multiplying the Stokes profiles with a representative set of HMI filter response functions. The magnetic field vector (x,y) and line-of-sight Doppler velocities V(x,y) are determined from these filtergrams using a simplified version of the HMI magnetic field processing pipeline. Finally, the reconstructed magnetic field (x,y) and line-of-sight velocity V(x,y) are compared to the actual magnetic field (x,y,z) and vertical velocity V0(x,y,z) in the simulations.