Kinetic Simulations of Electron Instabilities in the Solar Corona

• Applicant: Dr. Urs Ganse
• Subject Area: Astrophysics and Astronomy
• Term: from 2013 to 2015
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 235550657

Type III and IV solar radio bursts are highly energetic radio emissions from the solar corona, which appear in conjunction with solar flares and energetic particle emission. Due to their direct connection with coronal electron physics, they could serve as excellent probes of coronal physics and space weather prediction.However, due to the complex structure of the plasma in the solar corona, and the nonlinear plasma effects in this region, many details of the emission processes are impervious to analytic modelling. Kinetic simulations of the emission regions are hence required to study the details of electron instabilities leading to radio burst emission.Using the Particle-in-Cell code ACRONYM, which has already been successfully employed in the study of Type II radio bursts from coronal mass ejections, I plan to conduct simulations of particle acceleration, wave excitation and nonlinear coupling in the corona, focussing on the precise conditions leading to Type III and structured Type IV radio burst emission.

• DFG Programme: Research Fellowships
• International Connection: United Kingdom
• Host: Professor Dr. David Burgess