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This Letter reports the first observation of the onset of fully developed turbulence in the solar corona. Long time series of white-light coronal images, acquired by Metis aboard Solar Orbiter at 2 minutes cadence and spanning about 10 hr, were studied to gain insight into the statistical properties of fluctuations in the density of the coronal plasma in the time domain. From pixel-by-pixel spectral frequency analysis in the whole Metis field of view, the scaling exponents of plasma fluctuations were derived. The results show that, over timescales ranging from 1 to 10 hr and corresponding to the photospheric mesogranulation-driven dynamics, the density spectra become shallower moving away from the Sun, resembling a Kolmogorov-like spectrum at 3 R _⊙ . According to the latest observation and interpretive work, the observed 5/3 scaling law for density fluctuations is indicative of the onset of fully developed turbulence in the corona. Metis observation-based evidence for a Kolmogorov turbulent form of the fluctuating density spectrum casts light on the evolution of 2D turbulence in the early stages of its upward transport from the low corona.

For the first time the evolution of the coronal reconfiguration after a coronal mass ejection (CME) was observed by the multichannel Metis Coronagraph on board the ESA–Solar Orbiter mission. The images acquired in visible light (VL) between 3.0 and 5.4 R _⊙ show the formation after a CME of a bright elongated radial feature interpreted as a post-CME current sheet (CS). The unique combination of VL and UV images allowed the time evolution of multiple plasma physical parameters inside and outside the CS region to be mapped in 2D for the first time. The CS electron temperature reached peak values higher than 1 MK, more than twice as high as the surrounding corona. An elongated vertical diffusion region, characterized as a region of much higher thermal pressure and lower magnetic pressure, is observed to slowly propagate outward during 13 hr of observations. Inside this region the Alfvénic Mach number is of the order of M _A ≃ 0.02–0.11, the plasma β is close to unity, and the level of turbulence is higher than in the surrounding corona, but decreases slowly with time. All these results provide one of the most complete pictures of these features, and support the idea of a magnetic reconnection coupled with turbulence, thus allowing significant heating of the local plasma, despite the weakness of involved coronal magnetic fields in the considered altitude range.

This Letter reports the first observational estimate of the heating rate in the slowly expanding solar corona. The analysis exploits the simultaneous remote and local observations of the same coronal plasma volume, with the Solar Orbiter/Metis and the Parker Solar Probe instruments, respectively, and relies on the basic solar wind magnetohydrodynamic equations. As expected, energy losses are a minor fraction of the solar wind energy flux, since most of the energy dissipation that feeds the heating and acceleration of the coronal flow occurs much closer to the Sun than the heights probed in the present study, which range from 6.3 to 13.3 R _⊙ . The energy deposited to the supersonic wind is then used to explain the observed slight residual wind acceleration and to maintain the plasma in a nonadiabatic state. As derived in the Wentzel–Kramers–Brillouin limit, the present energy transfer rate estimates provide a lower limit, which can be very useful in refining the turbulence-based modeling of coronal heating and subsequent solar wind acceleration.

Metis on board Solar Orbiter is the space coronagraph developed by an Italian–German–Czech consortium. It is capable of observing solar corona and various coronal structures in the visible-light (VL) and UV (hydrogen Ly α ) channels simultaneously for the first time. Here we present observations of a large eruptive prominence on 2021 April 25–26, in the VL, taken during the mission cruise phase, and demonstrate that apart from the broadband continuum emission, which is due to the Thomson scattering on prominence electrons, we detect a significant radiation in the neutral-helium D _3 line (587.6 nm), which lies within the Metis VL passband. We show how the prominence looks like in Stokes I , Q , and U . We consider two extreme cases of the prominence magnetic field, and we separate the Stokes I and Q signals pertinent to Thomson scattering and to the D _3 line. The degree of linear polarization of the D _3 line (both Q and U ) indicates the presence of the prominence magnetic field; hence Metis can serve as a magnetograph for eruptive prominences located high in the corona.

This paper addresses the first direct investigation of the energy budget in the solar corona. Exploiting joint observations of the same coronal plasma by Parker Solar Probe and the Metis coronagraph aboard Solar Orbiter and the conserved equations for mass, magnetic flux, and wave action, we estimate the values of all terms comprising the total energy flux of the proton component of the slow solar wind from 6.3 to 13.3 R _⊙ . For distances from the Sun to less than 7 R _⊙ , we find that the primary source of solar wind energy is magnetic fluctuations including Alfvén waves. As the plasma flows away from the low corona, magnetic energy is gradually converted into kinetic energy, which dominates the total energy flux at heights above 7 R _⊙ . It is found too that the electric potential energy flux plays an important role in accelerating the solar wind only at altitudes below 6 R _⊙ , while enthalpy and heat fluxes only become important at even lower heights. The results finally show that energy equipartition does not exist in the solar corona.

Evidence for the presence of ion cyclotron waves (ICWs), driven by turbulence, at the boundaries of the current sheet is reported in this paper. By exploiting the full potential of the joint observations performed by Parker Solar Probe and the Metis coronagraph on board Solar Orbiter, local measurements of the solar wind can be linked with the large-scale structures of the solar corona. The results suggest that the dynamics of the current sheet layers generates turbulence, which in turn creates a sufficiently strong temperature anisotropy to make the solar-wind plasma unstable to anisotropy-driven instabilities such as the Alfvén ion cyclotron, mirror-mode, and firehose instabilities. The study of the polarization state of high-frequency magnetic fluctuations reveals that ICWs are indeed present along the current sheet, thus linking the magnetic topology of the remotely imaged coronal source regions with the wave bursts observed in situ. The present results may allow improvement of state-of-the-art models based on the ion cyclotron mechanism, providing new insights into the processes involved in coronal heating.