Understanding plasma energisation and energy transport is one of the major challenges in the field of space plasma physics. Key regions where fundamental processes such as plasma heating, shock formation and re-formation, magnetic reconnection, turbulence, wave-particle interactions, plasma jets braking, and combinations of these initiate and govern particle energisation and energy transport include the solar atmosphere, the solar wind and the Earth's foreshock, bow shock, magnetosheath, magnetopause, magnetotail current sheet, and transition region.
Due to their proximity, these regions provide excellent laboratories in which to study such processes. Near Earth, the ESA/Cluster and NASA/MMS four-point constellations, as well as the large-scale multipoint NASA/THEMIS mission, have greatly improved our understanding of these plasma processes compared to earlier single-point measurements. However, these missions have also revealed that these processes operate across multiple scales, ranging from large fluid scales to smaller kinetic scales. This implies that multi-scale in situ observations are critical. To resolve scale coupling and ultimately fully understand plasma energisation and energy transport processes, simultaneous measurements at both fluid and kinetic scales are required. Building on previous single-scale missions, the Plasma Observatory (PO) mission represents the next generation of space plasma physics investigations. PO is a seven-spacecraft, multi-scale mission concept designed to study plasma energisation and energy transport in the Earth's magnetosphere simultaneously at fluid and ion scales. These are the scales at which the largest amount of electromagnetic energy is converted into energised particles and energy is transported. Any modelling approach, from global to kinetic, can be applied here.
We particularly welcome studies integrating numerical modeling, theoretical investigations and in-situ measurements/remote observations from past, current and future space missions such as Cluster, MMS, PO, Parker Solar Probe, Solar Orbiter, Bepi Colombo, SMILE, HelioSwarm, SPO...