26th Australian Institute of Physics Congress and the Australian and New Zealand Conference on Optics and Photonics

Session

AIP STSP: Solar Terrestrial and Space Physics 1

STSP

9 Dec 2026, 14:15

Belinda Hutchinson Building (The University of Sydney )

102. Magnetic field line braiding as a contributor to heating the magnetically-closed corona

David Pontin (University of Newcastle)

09/12/2026, 14:15

AIP | Solar Terrestrial and Space Physics (STSP)

Contributed Oral

One of the leading mechanisms for explaining the high temperature of the Sun’s corona is based on Parker’s conjecture that a sufficiently complex field will develop near-singular current sheets, leading to the onset of rapid magnetic reconnection and energy conversion. This topological dissipation mechanism remains a matter of debate, and is a key ingredient in the nanoflare model for coronal...

482. Validating Coronal Magnetic Field Models Using Gaussian Separation

Abhinav Govindan Iyer (The University of Sydney)

09/12/2026, 14:30

AIP | Solar Terrestrial and Space Physics (STSP)

Contributed Oral

Nonlinear force-free field (NLFFF) models are widely used to investigate coronal magnetic field structure in solar active regions, but methods to validate them remain limited. Here, we use Gaussian separation, recently applied to solar vector magnetogram data, to assess the accuracy of NLFFF models constructed with two methods: optimization and the current-field iteration (CFIT) implementation...

761. Beyond Stable IMF Assumptions: Dynamic Characterisation of Solar Wind Driving

Julie Currie (RMIT University)

09/12/2026, 14:45

AIP | Solar Terrestrial and Space Physics (STSP)

Contributed Oral

The plasma dynamics in near-Earth space are heavily influenced by the solar wind and associated interplanetary magnetic field (IMF). Physics-based models are widely used to investigate the dynamics of the ionosphere-thermosphere system and the response to solar wind forcing. Since the high latitude and polar regions are strongly coupled to interplanetary space, these regions act as a boundary...

140. Solar Flares: Automated Detection, Source Mapping, and an Analysis of Size-Waiting-Time Distributions and Correlations

Prof. Michael Wheatland (University of Sydney)

09/12/2026, 15:00

AIP | Solar Terrestrial and Space Physics (STSP)

Contributed Oral

We develop a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN)-based framework to improve solar flare identification from soft X-ray (SXR) observations and investigate flare size-waiting-time correlations, where by size we mean SXR peak flux. We study the statistical properties of solar flares both globally (i.e., across the solar disk) and locally (i.e., within individual active regions, ARs) and compare...

260. Probabilistic Prediction of Solar Eruptions via Ensemble Modelling of Deterministic Simulations

Kyriakos Tapinou (University of Sydney - SIFA)

09/12/2026, 15:15

AIP | Solar Terrestrial and Space Physics (STSP)

Contributed Oral

Predicting solar eruptions from physics-based simulations is a challenging uncertainty-quantification problem: the governing magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) evolution is nonlinear, the coronal magnetic field is poorly constrained by observations, and the various simulation codes available use distinct numerical, physical, and boundary-condition assumptions. In this talk I will present statistical...