Report of Conference on Outstanding Questions in Solar System Plasma Physics: Theory and Instrumentation

Abstract

On February 2–5, 1988, 90 space physicists met at Yosemite National Park to discuss theoretical and instrumentation aspects of solar system plasma physics. The participants were divided nearly equally between those involved in the plasma physics of planetary, Earth, and cometary magnetospheres and those involved in the field of solar physics. This dichotomy led to a significant amount of cross fertilization of ideas between the two groups. In retrospect the exchange would have been facilitated by introductory tutorial lectures on the outstanding problems extant in the two subjects. Nonetheless, as the conference progressed, with plenty of time for informal discussion, the two groups found that not only are the Sun and the various planetary magnetospheres inextricably linked, as expected, via the solar wind, but also that they are characterized by a number of the same physical phenomena. For example, one phenomenon, the cyclotron maser resonance, was suggested to be responsible for Type III solar radio bursts. The same phenomenon is generally accepted to cause auroral kilometric radiation in the Earth's magnetosphere. Lively discussions were also held on collisionless shocks, which are important phenomena in the solar atmosphere, the solar wind, and in the interaction of the solar wind with planetary magnetospheres. The analogy of solar flares and magnetospheric substorms and the role of magnetic reconnection in solar and magnetospheric physics were also topics of mutual interest which spawned vigorous discussion as a result of the different perspectives of the two communities.