SUMMARY

This workshop concentrated on the physics of sun based on high angular, spectral, and temporal resolution. The workshop revolved around the combined observational, theoretical and modeling approach as applied to understanding the fundamental physical processes that are observed or could be observed on the Sun, at high resolution. State of the art high resolution observational technologies presently available or that would push the envelope of high resolution solar physics were major themes of this workshop. This workshop was dedicated to Dr. Richard B. Dunn on his retirement from the NSO. Dr. Dunn is a pioneer in high resolution solar physics and his engineering, design, technical, and observation skills have laid firm foundations on present day high resolution solar physics. The topic is especially appropriate for the occasion, as Dr. Dunn designed and built the Vacuum Tower Telescope at Sacramento Peak, one of the finest high resolution solar telescopes in the world.

About 75 scientists from around the world participated in this workshop, with nearly half will be from other countries, including Austria, China, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Russia, Spain , and Sweden.

The Sun is unique among stars as it directly affects the Earth's environment. Furthermore the Sun is the only star that can be spatially resolved well enough to allow fundamental astro-physical processes to be studied in detail. Substantial progress has recently been made in the solar astronomers' quest for observations of ever higher resolution.

High Lights

In his Keynote Address, John H. Thomas (University of Rochester) enunciated the fresh emphasis on need for building large high resolution solar telescopes laying emphasis of physical scales of the size of photon mean free paths, with examples extracted from the photon starved polarization budget of existing telescopes, the fundamental nature of convective and magnetic field interaction at these scales, spectroscopic properties of small scale structures and the magneto-hydrodynamic basis of understanding sunspot and associated magnetic phenomena at high resolution.

Oscar Steiner (KIS, Germany) described modeling techniques that were the driving need for high resolution solar physics and described the rather few `tip-of-the-iceberg' high resolution experiments that have dramatically changed our understanding of the nature of flux tubes, their formation and evolution and how low resolution solar physics has prevented us from exploring this new frontier.

Present new generation telescopes like the Duch Open Air Telescope on La Palma (Rob Rutten, Sterrekindig Institute, Holland) and newer concepts for instrumentation (J. Beckers, NSO) including the demonstration of adaptive optics techniques (T. Rimmele, NSO, M. Shand et al., Swedish Observatories at La Palma) highlighted instrumentation-al push and drivers for newer 3-4 meter class telescopes. These technologies can be well augmented by enormous progress in image reconstructive techniques such as phase diversity (R. Paxman et al, University of Michigan) and Speckle reconstructive techniques (C Keller, NSO).

Near and far infrared solar physics was particularly high lighted by the efforts of T. Ayres (University of Colorado) and D. Gezari (NASA/GSFC). Spectroscopic and polarimetric techniques for understanding the convective and granular nature of the magnetic field, high resolution physics of the chromosphere when observed under fine scales, flux tube physics from radiative transfer inversion, high resolution solar oscillations and its interaction/impact on the physics of the sun at fine scales were presented by a number of authors.

A major high light of the meeting was the dramatic impact of the results of TRACE satellite, by A. Title (Lockheed-Stanford). Emergent loops, and interacting loops whose presence were a mere hint from earlier ground based observation showed a rather dramatic presence when observed with temperature sensitive lines, in the ultraviolet. The narrow corridors of magnetic reconnection as seen in large flares well illustrated the long held realization of thin current sheets and the localized heating they cause. The ever pervading presence of magnetic that get excited and become visible when dynamic magnetic activity crossed their paths left a deep visible impact on a better understanding of fundamental coronal physics. The presence of interacting and oscillating post-flare loop systems were well highlighted by the TRACE observations.

This workshop reviewed recent progress in the areas of theoretical modeling and observations of magneto convective physics on scales below 1000 km. Techniques for achieving high resolution observations including new technologies like adaptive optics, next generation solar telescopes and proposed high resolution space missions such as Solar-B (Y. Suematsu, NOAJ, Japan) were discussed.

A major goal of the workshop was to produce a proceedings that reviews our current understanding of fundamental physical processes occurring on the Sun at small spatial scales and the state-of-the-art of instrumentation used to achieve high resolution observations. The workshop also attempted to define the needs for future telescopes on the ground and in space.

The Astronomical Society of the Pacific published the proceedings, as ASP Conference Series Volume 183. The local organizers were: Thomas Rimmele (Chair), K. S. Balasubramaniam, Richard Radick and Rebecca Coleman.

The Scientific Organizing Committee members were: K.S. Balasubramaniam (NSO), T. Berger (LMSAL), T. Bogdan (HAO), P. Goode(BBSO/NJIT), W. Livingston NSO), R. Radick (AFRL), T. Rimmele (Chair - NSO) and O. von der Luehe (KIS).

The mail address is: National Solar Observatory Sunspot, NM 88349, USA.

This Workshop was sponsored by the National Solar Observatory, the National Optical Astronomy Observatories, U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research and through its European and Asian Offices, the National Science Foundation and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.

The National Solar Observatory (NSO) is one of the three Observatories making up the National Optical Astronomical Observatories (NOAO). NOAO is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under Cooperative Agreement with the National Science Foundation