The Workshop objectives are to review systematically, from a physical viewpoint, all the indicators of solar activity (focussing on the Schwabe and Hale cycles) and to elaborate possible/likely/proven causal chains from the solar interior to the corona, to formulate the most likely physically based causal time sequence(s) from one solar cycle to the next (as a physical basis of predictive models), to outline the likely causes/mechanisms of longer term memory – how solar conditions and activity parameters map from one cycle to feed through the next cycle(s), to include the topic of stellar activity cycles for a comparative study with the solar activity cycle, and to conclude about the state of knowledge/ignorance about the physics of solar activity.

The Workshop will be structured into six sessions on:

• Solar activity indices and their interdependences – a detailed review

• Physical inferences from the activity indices

• The interior drivers of solar activity

• Magnetic feedback and magnetic flux dynamics related to solar activity

• Solar cycles, stellar cycles – a comparative view of solar/stellar activity

• Drawing conclusions: the physical foundation of the solar cycle