Defining the Middle Corona.

The middle corona, the region roughly spanning heliocentric distances from 1.5 to 6 solar radii, encompasses almost all of the influential physical transitions and processes that govern the behavior of coronal outflow into the heliosphere. The solar wind, eruptions, and flows pass through the region, and they are shaped by it. Importantly, the region also modulates inflow from above that can drive dynamic changes at lower heights in the inner corona. Consequently, the middle corona is essential for comprehensively connecting the corona to the heliosphere and for developing corresponding global models. Nonetheless, because it is challenging to observe, the region has been poorly studied by both major solar remote-sensing and in-situ missions and instruments, extending back to the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) era. Thanks to recent advances in instrumentation, observational processing techniques, and a realization of the importance of the region, interest in the middle corona has increased. Although the region cannot be intrinsically separated from other regions of the solar atmosphere, there has emerged a need to define the region in terms of its location and extension in the solar atmosphere, its composition, the physical transitions that it covers, and the underlying physics believed to shape the region. This article aims to define the middle corona, its physical characteristics, and give an overview of the processes that occur there.

Global maps of the magnetic field in the solar corona.

Understanding many physical processes in the solar atmosphere requires determination of the magnetic field in each atmospheric layer. However, direct measurements of the magnetic field in the Sun's corona are difficult to obtain. Using observations with the Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter, we have determined the spatial distribution of the plasma density in the corona and the phase speed of the prevailing transverse magnetohydrodynamic waves within the plasma. We combined these measurements to map the plane-of-sky component of the global coronal magnetic field. The derived field strengths in the corona, from 1.05 to 1.35 solar radii, are mostly 1 to 4 gauss. Our results demonstrate the capability of imaging spectroscopy in coronal magnetic field diagnostics.

Solar UV and X-ray spectral diagnostics.

X-ray and ultraviolet (UV) observations of the outer solar atmosphere have been used for many decades to measure the fundamental parameters of the solar plasma. This review focuses on the optically thin emission from the solar atmosphere, mostly found at UV and X-ray (XUV) wavelengths, and discusses some of the diagnostic methods that have been used to measure electron densities, electron temperatures, differential emission measure (DEM), and relative chemical abundances. We mainly focus on methods and results obtained from high-resolution spectroscopy, rather than broad-band imaging. However, we note that the best results are often obtained by combining imaging and spectroscopic observations. We also mainly focus the review on measurements of electron densities and temperatures obtained from single ion diagnostics, to avoid issues related to the ionisation state of the plasma. We start the review with a short historical introduction on the main XUV high-resolution spectrometers, then review the basics of optically thin emission and the main processes that affect the formation of a spectral line. We mainly discuss plasma in equilibrium, but briefly mention non-equilibrium ionisation and non-thermal electron distributions. We also summarise the status of atomic data, which are an essential part of the diagnostic process. We then review the methods used to measure electron densities, electron temperatures, the DEM, and relative chemical abundances, and the results obtained for the lower solar atmosphere (within a fraction of the solar radii), for coronal holes, the quiet Sun, active regions and flares.