IRSOL Annual Report 2023 published

The IRSOL Annual Report 2023 has been released. Along with presentations by the four Research Groups, the report outlines the significant scientific accomplishments of the past year by researchers at the Locarno-Monti-based Institute.

The areas covered are as follows: polarisation modelling, diagnostics of solar magnetic fields, simulations of phenomena on stellar surfaces and in stellar atmospheres, application of research on the Sun to stellar astrophysics and the search for exoplanets, discoveries of magnetic white dwarfs, and refinements of the Observatory's instruments.

Satisfaction with what has been achieved in the past year at the USI institute is palpable, as confirmed by IRSOL Director Svetlana Berdyugina: "2023 has been a year full of achievements and new initiatives," she said, commenting on the progress mentioned earlier. "USI and IRSOL were among the nine international co-founders of the EST Canarias Foundation. Their aim was to construct the next-generation 4-meter European Solar Telescope (EST). IRSOL's contribution to the polarimetric unit for high-precision spectropolarimetry of the first-generation VTF instrument at the DKI Solar Telescope (Maui, USA), the world's largest, also opened up access to the most powerful solar instrument to IRSOL and our Swiss partners. In addition, IRSOL participated in NASA's CLASP series of sounding rocket experiments, generating unique data and inspiring our researchers to create the world's most advanced 3D radiative transport code with polarisation by scattering. IRSOL's co-leadership of Study Analysis Group 21 (SAG21) within NASA's Exoplanet Exploration Program Analysis Group (EXOPAG) was also noteworthy. It resulted in a comprehensive review of the current state of the art, challenges, and recommendations for studying the effects of stellar contamination on space exoplanet data obtained with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)."

In education, Berdyugina noted that "under the supervision of IRSOL researchers - in collaboration with USI, the University of Zurich and the University of Freiburg (Germany)- three doctoral theses were completed."

Attached is the full version of the IRSOL Annual Report.