Exploring New Regions of Space: Fundamentals and Impacts of Astrophysical Plasma Turbulence

像太阳这样的恒星是如何将快速的超音速风吹入其当地环境的？为什么太阳大气比太阳本身热几百倍？能否可靠地预测太空天气的破坏性影响？在我们尚未探索的部分太空中，我们可能会发现什么？未来十年提供了一个前所未有的机会，回答这些以及其他等离子体天体物理学中的重大悬而未决的问题。美国宇航局的帕克太阳探测器(PSP)将很快成为第一个飞越日冕的航天器，而旅行者号航天器现在开始首次探测日光层以外的星际介质(LISM)。在这些太空区域有许多谜团有待研究，但它们也掌握着理解上述悬而未决问题核心的宇宙物理过程的关键。此外，空间天气--近地空间中不断变化的等离子体条件--正被认识到越来越迫切地需要了解和预测，因为它可能会给我们地球上的我们带来严重的后果。由于现代社会日益依赖技术基础设施的脆弱性，太空天气与传染病一样，在英国国家风险登记册上名列前茅，有可能对经济和公共健康造成重大损害，危及生命。我认为回答这些问题和挑战的关键是等离子体湍流的重要性--构成宇宙中大部分已知物质的电离气体的基本复杂混乱行为。等离子体湍流在自然界中无处不在，控制着这些环境中的能量流动和动力学，但基本的问题仍然存在，比如它是如何工作的，它的普遍性有多大，以及它如何影响它所弥漫的天体物理系统。直到最近，湍流在天体物理学中的作用一直被低估，但随着最近对理解的进展，它被认为在许多重要场景中发挥着关键作用，例如太阳和恒星风产生、太阳日冕加热、吸积盘传输、星系团加热、磁场产生和空间天气影响。我的研究愿景是将这些相关主题联系在一个关于等离子体湍流的基本原理和影响的新的和独特的跨学科项目中，这将回答这些重要和及时的问题。拟议的研究以我在空间等离子体湍流方面的成熟专业知识为基础，涉及使用PSP在太阳日冕中进行第一次测量，以确定湍流如何产生太阳风并加热日冕，使用旅行者号了解星际湍流及其对全球日光层的影响，在大型等离子体设备上进行新颖的实验室实验，以探测等离子体湍流核心的基本相互作用，以及了解湍流对空间天气的影响并紧急改进预报精度的新技术。将对这个雄心勃勃而独特的项目采取跨学科方法，以实现最大影响，使我能够将自己确立为该领域的新领导者。通过回答基础等离子体物理和空间等离子体物理等长期存在的重要问题，将产生学术影响。社会经济影响将通过改进空间天气预报来实现，以帮助保护我们免受其破坏性影响，并防止对经济价值数十亿英镑的损害。总之，这项提议描述了一个非常及时的跨学科研究计划，涵盖了等离子体物理学的重要基础主题，天体物理学中长期悬而未决的问题，具有重大发现潜力的空间探索，以及直接应用于空间天气预报，明确了产生重大社会影响的途径。

How do stars like the Sun drive fast supersonic winds into their local environments? Why is the solar atmosphere hundreds of times hotter than the Sun itself? Can the damaging effects of space weather be reliably predicted? What might we discover in parts of space we have yet to explore? The coming decade presents an unprecedented opportunity answer these, and other, major outstanding questions in plasma astrophysics. NASA's Parker Solar Probe (PSP) will soon become the first spacecraft to fly through the solar corona, while the Voyager spacecraft are now beginning to explore the local interstellar medium (LISM) beyond the heliosphere for the first time. There are many mysteries to be investigated in these regions of space, but they also hold the key to understanding the universal physical processes at the heart of the above unanswered questions. In addition, space weather - the changing plasma conditions in the near-Earth space - is being realised as increasingly urgent to understand and predict due to its potentially severe consequences for us on Earth. Space weather is high on the UK's National Risk Register, alongside infectious diseases, with the potential for substantial harm to the economy and public health, putting lives at risk, due to the vulnerabilities of our modern society's increasing reliance on its technological infrastructure.I consider the essential key to answering these questions and challenges to be the importance of plasma turbulence - the fundamental complex chaotic behaviour of the ionised gasses that make up most of the known matter in the universe. Plasma turbulence is ubiquitous in nature, governing the flow of energy and dynamics of these environments, but basic questions remain about how it works, to what degree it is universal, and how it impacts the astrophysical systems that it pervades. Until recently, the effect of turbulence in astrophysics had been under-appreciated, but with recent progress in understanding it is now seen to play a key role in many important scenarios, e.g., solar and stellar wind generation, heating of the solar corona, accretion disk transport, galaxy cluster heating, magnetic field generation, and space weather impacts.My research vision is to connect these related themes in a new and unique interdisciplinary project on the fundamentals and impacts of plasma turbulence, which will answer these important and timely questions. The proposed research, which builds on my proven expertise in space plasma turbulence, involves using PSP to make the first measurements in the solar corona to determine how turbulence generates the solar wind and heats the corona, using Voyager to understand interstellar turbulence and its effect on the global heliosphere, novel lab experiments on the Large Plasma Device to probe the fundamental interactions at the heart of plasma turbulence, and new techniques to understand the effect of turbulence on space weather and make urgent improvements to forecast accuracy.An interdisciplinary approach will be taken to this ambitious and unique project to achieve maximum impact, allowing me to establish myself as a new leader in the field. Academic impact will be achieved by answering important long-standing questions of fundamental plasma physics and space plasma physics. Socioeconomic impact will be achieved from improved space weather predictions to help protect us from its damaging effects and preventing billions of pounds worth of damage to the economy.In summary, this proposal describes a highly timely programme of interdisciplinary research that covers important fundamental topics in plasma physics, long-standing open questions in astrophysics, space exploration with the potential for significant discoveries, and direct application to space weather forecasting with a clear path to major societal impact.