Surya model predicts solar EUV images and coronal hole maps from helium data
Cross-Modal Solar Image Synthesis: Adapting the Surya Foundation Model from He I 10830 Å to EUV Translation and Coronal Hole Segmentation
Artificial IntelligenceComputer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Summary
Solar scientists have a long history of observing the sun in helium light but modern images in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) reveal different solar features. The authors adapted a large solar model to translate full-disk helium images into EUV images and maps of coronal holes, which are regions important for space weather. Their model can recreate broad solar structures and improve predictions even for older observations before modern instruments existed. This work shows it's possible to use helium data as a window into the sun’s EUV properties when such data isn’t available.
What this means in practice
- •For space weather forecasters: Generate EUV solar images and coronal hole maps for dates before modern EUV instruments from helium observations to extend historical solar monitoring.
- •For solar observatory data teams: Create synthetic EUV data products to complement helium observations and improve solar image archives lacking EUV coverage.
Authors
Marco Marena, Andrés Muñoz Jaramillo, Qin Li, Haodi Jiang, Jinghao Cao, Wen He, Ziyang Zhang, Chenxi Yuan, Chao Wang, Haimin Wang, Bo Shen
Abstract
The long observational record of He I 10830 Å offers a means to investigate solar morphology before modern extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) imaging. We adapt the Surya solar foundation model to predict Solar Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (SDO/AIA) 94, 193, and 304 Å images and a coronal hole (CH) probability map from full-disk helium observations. A convolutional input adapter, low-rank backbone updates, and dedicated output decoders learn from temporally paired, geometrically registered observations, with Spatial Possibilistic Clustering Algorithm (SPOCA) catalog polygons providing CH supervision. On observations held out from downstream fine-tuning, the selected dedicated models achieve disk-restricted correlation coefficients (CCs) of 0.8196, 0.8885, and 0.8398 for the three AIA channels, respectively; the CH model achieves an intersection over union (IoU) of 0.4360. The predictions recover broad solar structure, although local agreement varies substantially by channel. An optional residual refiner addresses spatial detail, and its application on pre-SDO dates improves the correlation of synthetic AIA 304 with Solar and Heliospheric Observatory/Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (SOHO/EIT) 304 references from 0.6511 to 0.7085. Together, these results support the feasibility of helium-conditioned EUV morphological proxies and motivate their use in historical reconstruction, within the scope of the downstream test and cross-instrument evaluation.