Abstract

Among the main outstanding issues in solar physics are the coronal heating problem and the solar wind acceleration. During the last years observations with space telescopes, such as SoHO, TRACE, Hinode, STEREO, Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO), as well as ground-based instrumentation of unprecedented spatial and temporal resolution, such as the Swedish Solar Telescope (SST) and Dutch Open Telescope (DOT) on La Palma, the IBIS and ROSA instruments at the National Solar Observatory (USA), etc. have revealed a rich diversity of small-scale, dynamic phenomena which are found at the network boundaries and are associated with the evolving photospheric magnetic field concentrations. Their physical properties indicate that they are either closely related to each other or even identical, but given different names when observed with different instrumentation or in spectral lines that describe different parts of the solar atmosphere. Nowadays, there is a general consensus that these small-scale phenomena have profound effects on the mass and energy flows to the outer solar atmosphere. However, despite their importance and a multitude of theoretical models proposed, questions like how they are formed, why they appear differently in the different solar layers and spectral lines, how they are inter-related and how they affect the propagation of waves and which their role is in coronal heating and solar wind acceleration remain still unanswered. The goal of this project is to get a better insight into the structure and dynamics of these features and give answers to these questions. This will be achieved through the study of multi-wavelength observations from the ground and from space, along with 3D MHD numerical simulations, magnetic field extrapolations and forward modelling. The anticipated results from the project will fill a crucial gap in our ability to advance Sun-Earth connection studies by tracing the flow of mass and energy supplied in the corona and heliosphere.