Solar Plasma Physics

Research Group: Astronomy Unit
Number of Students: 1
Length of Study in Years: 3-4
Full-time Project: yes

Funding

QM Scholarship

STFC

CSC

Project Description

BEFORE reading any further, have a look at the exciting movies -- see COMMENTS section below -- of solar flares and the coronal rain, related to the proposed PhD projects.

Topics that may form the basis of PhD projects in Solar plasma physics group are broadly related to: (i) The magnetic energy release in solar atmosphere (The Solar coronal heating problem) and (ii) Particle acceleration (e.g. in Solar flares, Earth magnetosphere Auroral zone, Tokamaks and Particle Accelerators as SLAC). The research work mainly involves large-scale numerical simulations (Particle-in-Cell, Vlasov and Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD)). Research areas available for PhD study include:
(1) Novel particle accelerator concepts, plasma wake field acceleration;
(2) Enhanced Dissipation of MHD waves in inhomogeneous plasmas;
(3) Collisionless magnetic reconnection;
(4) Particle acceleration by dispersive Alfven waves;
(5) Electron acceleration by Langmuir waves;
(6) Radio emission mechanisms from accelerated electrons;
(7) Radio data analysis of Type III solar radio bursts from the Chilbolton LOFAR Station;

Recent and Current PhD projects include "Numerical and theoretical modelling of radio emission from solar flare electrons (Roman Pechhacker, started in 2010, graduated with PhD in December 2013)" and "Collisionless magnetic reconnection in X-point collapse (Jan Graf von der Pahlen, started in 2012)"

Possible future PhD projects include: any projects (1)--(7) above. This list is not exhaustive.
PhD applicants are welcome to explore my webpage
http://astro.qmul.ac.uk/~tsiklauri,
read recent papers
http://astro.qmul.ac.uk/~tsiklauri/sp.html and
then contact me for further details about these or other possible PhD projects.
See http://astro.qmul.ac.uk/phd/how-apply for how to apply for a PhD in Astronomy at Queen Mary.