PIF2025 - FISICA SOLAR ESPACIAL Y TIEMPO ESPACIAL - (PID2024-156066OB-C51)

The IAA-CSIC Solar Physics Group co-leads the design and construction of the PMI (Photospheric Magnetic field Imager) instrument within ESA’s Space Safety Programme Vigil mission. This mission will enable our group to make a significant contribution to space weather research and operational forecasting. On the one hand, we aim to train a new PhD student in advanced space weather prediction techniques, and on the other hand, in the analysis of extended temporal series, since Vigil is expected to deliver continuous observations over its planned ten-year lifetime. The thesis will focus on the assimilation of photospheric magnetic field measurements, particularly those obtained with the Solar Orbiter’s Polarimetric and Helioseismic Imager (SO/PHI), for which our institute is co-PI. These data will be incorporated into state-of-the-art space weather forecasting frameworks, with the objective of improving prediction capabilities for solar activity, heliospheric magnetic field evolution, and solar wind conditions. The student will also have access to complementary observations from ground-based solar telescopes and from the Sunrise III mission, which will form a key component of the training and data analysis activities. It is expected that the results of this thesis will contribute to the development of operational forecasting pipelines for future space weather alert systems, as well as to the scientific exploitation of both Vigil-PMI and SO/PHI datasets.