Matthew J. West's research while affiliated with Southwest Research Institute and other places
What is this page?
This page lists the scientific contributions of an author, who either does not have a ResearchGate profile, or has not yet added these contributions to their profile.
It was automatically created by ResearchGate to create a record of this author's body of work. We create such pages to advance our goal of creating and maintaining the most comprehensive scientific repository possible. In doing so, we process publicly available (personal) data relating to the author as a member of the scientific community.
If you're a ResearchGate member, you can follow this page to keep up with this author's work.
If you are this author, and you don't want us to display this page anymore, please let us know.
It was automatically created by ResearchGate to create a record of this author's body of work. We create such pages to advance our goal of creating and maintaining the most comprehensive scientific repository possible. In doing so, we process publicly available (personal) data relating to the author as a member of the scientific community.
If you're a ResearchGate member, you can follow this page to keep up with this author's work.
If you are this author, and you don't want us to display this page anymore, please let us know.
Publications (67)
The broadband solar K-corona is linearly polarized due to Thomson scattering. Various strategies have been used to represent coronal polarization. Here, we present a new way to visualize the polarized corona, using observations from the 2023 April 20 total solar eclipse in Australia in support of the Citizen CATE 2024 project. We convert observatio...
The NDCube 2 API is a Python application programming interface (API) for storing and manipulating N-dimensional coordinate-aware astronomical data. While there are Python packages for handling astronomical data and coordinate transformations separately and for handling specific combinations of dimensions and transformations, none provide a unified...
We present an extension of the Coronal Reconstruction Onto B-Aligned Regions (CROBAR) method to Linear Force Free Field (LFFF) extrapolations, and apply it to the reconstruction of a set of AIA, MDI, and STEREO EUVI data. The results demonstrate that CROBAR can not only reconstruct coronal emission structures, but also that it can help constrain th...
We report on the closest view of a coronal mass ejection (CME) observed by the Parker Solar Probe (PSP)/ Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar PRobe (WISPR) instrument on 2022 September 5, when PSP was traversing from a distance of 15.3 to 13.5 R ⊙ from the Sun. The CME leading edge and an arc-shaped concave-up structure near the core were tracked in...
We report on the closest view of a coronal mass ejection observed by the Parker Solar Probe (PSP)/Wide-field Imager for {Parker} Solar PRobe (WISPR) instrument on September 05, 2022, when PSP was traversing from a distance of 15.3~to~13.5~R$_\odot$ from the Sun. The CME leading edge and an arc-shaped {\emph{concave-up} structure near the core} was...
The middle corona, the region roughly spanning heliocentric altitudes from 1.5–6 R⊙, encompasses almost all of the influential physical transitions and processes that govern the behavior of coronal outflow into the heliosphere. Eruptions that could disrupt the near-Earth environment propagate through it. Importantly, it also modulates inflow from a...
COMPLETE is a flagship mission concept combining broadband spectroscopic imaging and comprehensive magnetography from multiple viewpoints around the Sun to enable tomographic reconstruction of 3D coronal magnetic fields and associated dynamic plasma properties, which provide direct diagnostics of energy release. COMPLETE re-imagines the paradigm fo...
Heliophysics image data largely relies on a forty-year-old ecosystem built on the venerable Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) data standard. While many in situ measurements use newer standards, they are difficult to integrate with multiple data streams required to develop global understanding. Additionally, most data users still engage with da...
Solar flares and the often associated solar eruptive events serve as an outstanding laboratory to study the magnetic reconnection and the associated energy release and conversion processes under plasma conditions difficult to reproduce in the laboratory, and with considerable spatiotemporal details not possible elsewhere in the universe. In the pas...
The “middle corona,” defined by West et al. (2022) as the region between ∼1.5–6 R⊙, is a critical transition region that connects the highly structured lower corona to the outer corona where the magnetic field becomes predominantly radial. At radio wavelengths, remote-sensing of the middle corona falls in the meter–decameter wavelength range where...
The coronal magnetic field is the prime driver behind many as-yet unsolved mysteries: solar eruptions, coronal heating, and the solar wind, to name a few. It is, however, still poorly observed and understood. We highlight key questions related to magnetic energy storage, release, and transport in the solar corona, and their relationship to these im...
Our current theoretical and observational understanding suggests that critical properties of the solar wind and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are imparted within 10 Rs, particularly below 4 Rs. This seemingly narrow spatial region encompasses the transition of coronal plasma processes through the entire range of physical regimes from fluid to kinet...
The Frequency Agile Solar Radiotelescope (FASR) has been strongly endorsed as a top com- munity priority by both Astronomy & Astrophysics Decadal Surveys and Solar & Space Physics Decadal Surveys in the past two decades. Although it was developed to a high state of readiness in previous years (it went through a CATE analysis and was declared “doabl...
Our current theoretical and observational understanding suggests that critical properties of the solar wind and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are imparted within 10 Rs, particularly below 4 Rs. This seemingly narrow spatial region encompasses the transition of coronal plasma processes through the entire range of physical regimes from fluid to kinet...
![Comparison of a filtered image with c0=1.0\documentclass[12pt]{minimal}...](publication/372444358/figure/fig5/AS:11431281181517265@1692065961580/Comparison-of-a-filtered-image-with-c010documentclass12ptminimal_Q320.jpg)
Unlabelled:
We present the SWAP Filter: an azimuthally varying, radial normalizing filter specifically developed for EUV images of the solar corona, named for the Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing (SWAP) instrument on the Project for On-Board Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) spacecraft. We discuss the origins of our technique, its implementat...
The middle corona, the region roughly spanning heliocentric distances from 1.5 to 6 solar radii, encompasses almost all of the influential physical transitions and processes that govern the behavior of coronal outflow into the heliosphere. The solar wind, eruptions, and flows pass through the region, and they are shaped by it. Importantly, the regi...
COMPLETE is a flagship mission concept combining broadband spectroscopic imaging and comprehensive magnetography from multiple viewpoints around the Sun to enable tomographic reconstruction of 3D coronal magnetic fields and associated dynamic plasma properties, which provide direct diagnostics of energy release. COMPLETE re-imagines the paradigm fo...
The coronal magnetic field is the prime driver behind many as-yet unsolved mysteries: solar eruptions, coronal heating, and the solar wind, to name a few. It is, however, still poorly observed and understood. We highlight key questions related to magnetic energy storage, release, and transport in the solar corona, and their relationship to these im...
Heliophysics image data largely relies on a forty-year-old ecosystem built on the venerable Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) data standard. While many in situ measurements use newer standards, they are difficult to integrate with multiple data streams required to develop global understanding. Additionally, most data users still engage with da...
This paper summarizes the Seven Sisters solar wind mission concept and the outstanding science questions motivating the mission science objectives. The Seven Sisters mission includes seven individual spacecraft designed to uncover fundamental physical processes in the solar wind and provides up to ≈ 2 days of advanced space weather warnings for 550...
Establishing the Sun-Earth connection requires overcoming the challenges of exploring the data from past and current missions and leveraging tools and models (data mining) to create an efficient system treatment of the Sun and heliosphere. However, solar and heliospheric environment data constitute a vast source of information whose potential is fa...
On February 21 and March 21 – 22, 2021, the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) onboard Solar Orbiter observed three prominence eruptions. The eruptions were associated with coronal mass ejections (CMEs) observed by Metis, Solar Orbiter’s coronagraph. All three eruptions were also observed by instruments onboard the Solar–TErrestrial RElations Observa...
We present the SWAP Filter: an azimuthally varying, radial normalizing filter specifically developed for EUV images of the solar corona. We discuss the origins of our technique, its implementation and key user-configurable parameters, and highlight its effects on data via a series of examples. We discuss the filter's strengths in a data environment...
The "middle corona," defined by West et al. (2022) as the region between ~1.5-6 solar radii, is a critical transition region that connects the highly structured lower corona to the outer corona where the magnetic field becomes predominantly radial. At radio wavelengths, remote-sensing of the middle corona falls in the meter-decameter wavelength ran...
The Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing (SWAP) instrument onboard ESA’s PRoject for On Board Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) has provided the first uncompressed, high-cadence, continuous, large field-of-view observations of the extended extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) corona for over a complete solar cycle. It has helped shape our understanding of th...
The middle corona, the region roughly spanning heliocentric altitudes from $1.5$ to $6\,R_\odot$, encompasses almost all of the influential physical transitions and processes that govern the behavior of coronal outflow into the heliosphere. Eruptions that could disrupt the near-Earth environment propagate through it. Importantly, it modulates inflo...
We report on a particular example of noise and data representation interacting to introduce systematic error into scientific measurements. Many instruments collect integer digitized values and apply nonlinear coding, in particular square root coding, to compress the data for transfer or downlink; this can introduce surprising systematic errors when...
During the quadrature period (2010 December–2011 August) the STEREO-A and B satellites were approximately at right angles to the SOHO satellite. This alignment was particularly advantageous for determining the coronal mass ejection (CME) properties, since the closer a CME propagates to the plane of sky, the smaller the measurement inaccuracies are....
The PRoject for OnBoard Autonomy 2/Sun Watcher using Active pixel system detector and image Processing (PROBA2/SWAP) instrument images the full-disk extreme ultraviolet (EUV) Sun using a complementary metal-oxide semiconductor active-pixel sensor (CMOS-APS) detector with a filter centered on a 174 Å passband at a cadence of one to two minutes. In c...
Linearly polarized light has been used to view the solar corona for over 150 years. While the familiar Stokes representation for polarimetry is complete, it is best matched to a laboratory setting and therefore is not the most convenient representation either for coronal instrument design or for coronal data analysis. Over the last 100 years of dev...
On 2013 June 21, a solar prominence eruption was observed, accompanied by an M2.9 class flare, a fast coronal mass ejection, and a type II radio burst. The concomitant emission of solar energetic particles (SEPs) produced a significant proton flux increase, in the energy range 4–100 MeV, measured by the Low and High Energy Telescopes on board the S...
Linear polarized light has been used to view the solar corona for over 150 years. While the familiar Stokes representation for polarimetry is complete, it is best matched to a laboratory setting and therefore is not the most convenient representation either for coronal instrument design or for coronal data analysis. Over the last 100 years of devel...
Solar eruptions such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs) observed in the inner solar corona (up to 4 R⊙) show acceleration profiles that appear as parabolic ridges in height–time plots. Inspired by the white-light automated detection algorithms Computer Aided CME Tracking System (CACTus) and Solar Eruptive Events Detection System (SEEDS), we employ th...
The Sun Coronal Ejection Tracker (SunCET) is an extreme ultraviolet imager and spectrograph instrument concept for tracking coronal mass ejections through the region where they experience the majority of their acceleration: the difficult-to-observe middle corona. It contains a wide field of view (0-4~\Rs) imager and a 1~\AA\ spectral-resolution-irr...
The Sun Coronal Ejection Tracker (SunCET) is an extreme ultraviolet imager and spectrograph instrument concept for tracking coronal mass ejections through the region where they experience the majority of their acceration: the difficult-to-observe middle corona. It contains a wide field of view (0--4~\Rs) imager and a 1~\AA\ spectral-resolution-irra...
p>Aims. We analyse the Signal-to-Noise Ratio (SNR) requirements of the European Space Agency (ESA)-funded Solar Coronagraph for OPErations (SCOPE) instrument with respect to the manual and automatic detection of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) in its field of view of 2.5 to 30 solar radii.
Methods. For our analysis, SNR values are estimated from obse...
Solar eruptions such as Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) observed in the inner solar corona (up to 4 R$_{\odot}$) show acceleration profiles which appear as parabolic ridges in height-time plots. Inspired by the white-light automated detection algorithms, Computer Aided CME Tracking System (CACTus) and Solar Eruptive Events Detection System (SEEDS), w...
Coronal waves are large-scale disturbances often driven by coronal mass ejections (CMEs). We investigate a spectacular wave event on 7 March 2012, which is associated with an X5.4 flare (SOL2012-03-07). By using a running center-median (RCM) filtering method for the detection of temporal variations in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images, we enhance th...
Coronal waves are large-scale disturbances often driven by coronal mass ejections (CMEs). We investigate a spectacular wave event on 7 March 2012, which is associated with an X5.4 flare (SOL2012-03-07). By using a running center-median (RCM) filtering method for the detection of temporal variations in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images, we enhance th...
The analysis of the deflection of coronal mass ejection (CME) events plays an important role in the improvement of the forecasting of their geo-effectiveness. Motivated by the scarcity of comprehensive studies of CME events with a focus on the governing conditions that drive deflections during their early stages, we performed an extensive analysis...
The large field-of-view of the Sun Watcher using Active Pixel System detector and Image Processing (SWAP) instrument onboard the PRoject for Onboard Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) spacecraft provides a unique opportunity to study extended coronal structures observed in the EUV in conjunction with global coronal magnetic field simulations. A global non-potenti...
The large field-of-view of the Sun Watcher using Active Pixel System detector and Image Processing (SWAP) instrument on board the PRoject for Onboard Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) spacecraft provides a unique opportunity to study extended coronal structures observed in EUV in conjunction with global coronal magnetic field simulations. A global non-potential...
NASA's WB-57 High Altitude Research Program provides a deployable, mobile, stratospheric platform for scientific research. Airborne platforms are of particular value for making coronal observations during total solar eclipses because of their ability both to follow the Moon's shadow and to get above most of the atmospheric airmass that can interfer...
We use The Sun Watcher with Active Pixel System detector and Image Processing (SWAP) imager onboard the Project for Onboard Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) mission to study the evolution of large-scale EUV structures in the solar corona observed throughout Solar Cycle 24 (from 2010 to 2019). We discuss the evolution of the on-disk coronal features and at diffe...
We use The Sun Watcher with Active Pixel System detector and Image Processing (SWAP) imager onboard the Project for Onboard Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) mission to study the evolution of large-scale EUV structures in the solar corona observed throughout Solar Cycle 24 (from 2010 to 2019). We discuss the evolution of the on-disk coronal features and at diffe...
NASA's WB-57 High Altitude Research Program provides a deployable, mobile, stratospheric platform for scientific research. Airborne platforms are of particular value for making coronal observations during total solar eclipses because of their ability both to follow the Moon's shadow and to get above most of the atmospheric airmass that can interfer...
Lagrange eUv Coronal Imager (LUCI) is a solar imager in the Extreme UltraViolet (EUV) that is being developed as part of the Lagrange mission, a mission designed to be positioned at the L5 Lagrangian point to monitor space weather from its source on the Sun, through the heliosphere, to the Earth. LUCI will use an off-axis two mirror design equipped...
We analyze in this work the propagation and geoeffectiveness of four successive coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that erupted from the Sun during 2013 May 21–23 and were detected in interplanetary space by the Wind and/or STEREO-A spacecraft. All these CMEs featured critical aspects for understanding so-called "problem space weather storms" at Earth....
We analyse in this work the propagation and geoeffectiveness of four successive coronal mass ejections (CMEs) that erupted from the Sun during 21--23 May 2013 and that were detected in interplanetary space by the Wind and/or STEREO-A spacecraft. All these CMEs featured critical aspects for understanding so-called "problem space weather storms" at E...
We present the evolution of a coronal cavity encompassing its quiescent and eruptive phases in the lower corona. Using the multi-vantage point observations from the SDO/AIA, STEREO SECCHI/EUVI and PROBA2/SWAP EUV imagers, we capture the sequence of quasi-static equilibria of the quiescent cavity which exhibited a slow rise and expansion phase durin...
Total solar eclipses present rare opportunities to study the complex solar corona, down to altitudes of just a few percent of a solar radius above the surface, using ground-based and airborne observatories that would otherwise be dominated by the intense solar disk and high sky brightness. Studying the corona is critical to gaining a better underst...
Total solar eclipses present rare opportunities to study the complex solar corona, down to altitudes of just a few percent of a solar radius above the surface, using ground-based and airborne observatories that would otherwise be dominated by the intense solar disk and high sky brightness. Studying the corona is critical to gaining a better underst...
A total solar eclipse occurred on 20 March 2015, with a totality path passing mostly above the North Atlantic Ocean, which resulted in a partial solar eclipse over Belgium and large parts of Europe. In anticipation of this event, a dedicated observational campaign was set up at the Belgian Solar-Terrestrial Centre of Excellence (STCE). The objectiv...
On 14 October 2014 the Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing
(SWAP) EUV solar telescope on-board the Project for On-Board Autonomy 2
(PROBA2) spacecraft observed an eruption that led to the formation of perhaps
the largest post-eruptive loop system seen in the solar corona in solar cycle
24. The initial eruption occurred at about 18:3...
Data from the EUV imager SWAP and UV/EUV radiometer LYRA on board the
PROBA2 spacecraft are regularly affected by space weather conditions
along the spacecraft's orbital path. While these effects are generally
removed from calibrated data intended for scientific analysis, they
provide an interesting opportunity to characterize the evolution
near-Ea...
EIT waves (named so after the SOHO/EIT telescope that was used for their discovery) are large-scale bright fronts propagating in the solar corona in association with coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Their physical nature is still unclear. EIT waves are modeled either as fast-mode magnetosonic waves or invoking several possibilities linked to the magn...
Since 2006, the twin STEREO spacecraft have been providing us with observations of the Sun, including detection of CMEs and ICMEs. There are examples of ICMEs seen by more than one spacecraft (also including ACE) which provide important insights into their internal properties and general structure. Furthermore, the increasing separation between STE...
Citations
... To accommodate the realities of measurement physics, these suites comprise multiple detectors, each optimized both for its specific observations and to function as an element of a single integrated observatory. The instrument requirements are specifically crafted to enable seamless integration within COMPLETE's data assimilation and physical modeling framework to generate unified data products containing the meaningful physical properties of the underlying coronal plasma (see Caspi et al. 2022. Predicted instrument performances meet measurement requirements and all instrument designs are derived from previously formulated or flown instruments, with appropriate engineering modifications required for COMPLETE. ...
![[object Object]](https://i1.rgstatic.net/ii/profile.image/278752576720900-1443471201464_Q64/Amir-Caspi-2.jpg)
![[object Object]](https://i1.rgstatic.net/ii/profile.image/335964170932226-1457111508570_Q64/D-Seaton.jpg)
![[object Object]](https://i1.rgstatic.net/ii/profile.image/272392748531713-1441954900157_Q64/Ivan-Zimovets.jpg)
... Note that the goal of this paper is not to provide detailed user instructions or an exhaustive list of functionalities offered by the NDCube 2 API or the ndcube package. For this, we refer readers to API's defining document (Mumford & Ryan 2020) in addition to the ndcube package publication in JOSS (Ryan et al. 2023a) and the ndcube documentation. 21 Instead, this paper aims to reveal the philosophies and capabilities of these tools. ...
![[object Object]](https://i1.rgstatic.net/ii/profile.image/822149564620800-1573027139393_Q64/Daniel-Ryan-32.jpg)
... However, the confirmed crossing of a CME-flare CS that undergoes rapid and complex magnetic reconnection has not been reported yet. A possible crossing was reported recently by Romeo et al. (2023) and Patel et al. (2023), who investigated a fast CME event on 2022 September 5 that swept PSP. ...
![[object Object]](https://i1.rgstatic.net/ii/profile.image/1022528877256704-1620801290025_Q64/Ritesh-Patel-18.jpg)
![[object Object]](https://i1.rgstatic.net/ii/profile.image/272506951041039-1441982128690_Q64/Katharine-Reeves-3.jpg)
... Unified 3D data assimilation and modeling frameworks will be foundational to the next generation of distributed solar observatories (Raouafi et al. 2023;Gopalswamy et al. 2023) or for coordination across several missions with unique viewpoints Hassler et al. (2023). Missions that leverage highlycomplementary multi-perspective observations specifically to probe the deep 3D physics of the corona, such as the COMPLETE concept that combines global magnetography and broadband spectroscopic imaging (Caspi et al. 2023b), will require tools like CROBAR to link their many observables in self-consistent physically meaningful ways. ...