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The AIA design is based on science requirements (as detailed in the AIA proposal LMSSC-P20017) that are compatible with the requirements formulated by the SDO Science Definition Team and the LWS Science Architecture Team. This design provides the following instrument capabilities:
  • Seven EUV and three UV-visible channels (listed in Table A1). Four of the EUV wavelength bands open new perspectives on the solar corona, having never been imaged or imaged only during brief rocket flights. The set of six EUV channels that observe ionized iron allow the construction of relatively narrow-band temperature maps of the solar corona from below 1 MK to above 20 MK.
  • A field of view exceeding 41 arcmin (1.28 solar radii in the EW and NS directions), with 0.6 arcsec pixels.
  • A detector full well > 150,000 electrons and ~ 15 e/photon, with a camera readout noise ~ 25 electrons.
  • A sustained 10-s cadence during most of the mission.
  • A capability to adjust the observing program to changing solar conditions in order to implement observing programs that are optimized to meet the requirements of specific scientific objectives. This allows, for example, a 2 second cadence in a reduced field of view for flare studies.
Table A1: AIA wavelength bands.
Channel namePrimary ion(s) Region of atmosphere* Char. log(T)
white lightcontinuumphotosphere3.7
1700Åcontinuumtemperature minimum, photosphere3.7
304Å**He  IIchromosphere, transition region4.7
1600Å**C  IV+cont.transition region + upper photosphere5.0
171Å**Fe  IXquiet corona, upper transition region 5.8
193Å**Fe  XII, XXIVcorona and hot flare plasma 6.1, 7.3
211Å**Fe  XIVactive-region corona 6.3
335Å**Fe  XVIactive-region corona 6.4
94Å**Fe  XVIIIflaring regions (partial readout possible)6.8
131Å**Fe  VIII, XX, XXIIIflaring regions (partial readout possible)5.6, 7.0, 7.2
* Absorption allows imaging of chromospheric material within the corona; ** in baseline program

  • AIA will obtain images in multiple EUV and UV pass bands. The basic observables are full-Sun intensities at a range of wavelengths. Together, these will comprise the data archive, which is freely accessible to the research community and, with limitations dictated by resources, to other interested parties. Derived data products, such as coronal thermal charts, maps of variability, and comparisons to HMI magnetograms and to (non-)potential field extrapolations will be made available regularly through the data-processing pipeline for a subset of the data for use in evaluation of the data and to aid the discovery of phenomena and cataloging of events. Software will be made available to researchers to create these data products for other datasets; a core library of easy-to-use, publicly-available software will be developed as part of the SolarSoft IDL environment to enable and support the investigations that are required to meet the primary AIA science goals.

    • For further details of the science requirements, we refer at present to the instrument description in the CSR science plan

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