Insights into Solar Flare Evolution Inferences on Magnetic Field Vectors and Radiative Losses

• Applicant: Alexander Pietrow, Ph.D.
• Subject Area: Astrophysics and Astronomy
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 548491309

Solar flares are strong bursts of energy and radiation that occur when energy stored in 'twisted' magnetic fields is suddenly released. Their potential impact on the Earth’s atmosphere and human infrastructure combined with the difficulty of even short-term predictability makes flares an important topic in space weather research. While solar flares are generally understood on a larger scale, there are still several unexplained processes inside and around them that prevent us from fully modeling these violent events. This project aims to take steps toward solving this problem by pursuing two goals. First, new tools will be developed to infer the Magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) properties (such as temperature, velocity, density, magnetic field strength, etc.) from a variety of telescopes, and archival data. Second, a time series of the largest solar flare of the last decade, captured with the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope, will be used to explore the origin and evolution of the large-, and small-scale features that drive this event, as well as their effect on the surrounding solar atmosphere.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• International Connection: Norway, Portugal, Sweden
• Cooperation Partners: Dr. Jaime de la Cruz Rodriguez; Dr. Carlos Diaz Baso; Professor Dr. Nuno Santos
• Co-Investigators: Dr. Horst Balthasar; Professor Dr. Carsten Denker