Testing plasma diagnostics from imaging and spectral observations | P. Testa ( SAO-Harvard Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge – USA )

Hinode and SDO high spatial/temporal/spectral resolution solar observations provide us with accurate diagnostics of solar coronal plasmas (density, temperature, abundances,…). I will discuss some of the limitations of these diagnostics due e.g. to completeness and accuracy of the atomic data (in particular in the narrow passbands of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly onboard SDO), or to superposition of different structures in the line of sight. In order to explore these issues several approaches are used including the analysis of high spectral resolution stellar data of the low-activity (solar-like) corona of Procyon, and the analysis of images and spectra synthesized from realistic 3D radiative MHD simulations of the solar atmosphere obtained from the state-of-the-art Bifrost code.