NJIT Physics Department Seminar

 

February 6th, Monday, 2017

 

An X-ray View of Solar Flares

 

Dr. Marina Battaglia 

U. of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland

Switzerland

(Solar Physics, Host: Bin Chen)

 

Time: 11:45am-12:45pm with 11:30am tea time

Room: ECE 202

 

Solar flares are the most energetic phenomena in our solar system. In seconds to minutes they effectively release magnetic energy, heat plasma, and accelerate particles to relativistic speeds. Yet many aspects of where and how energy is released, how particles are accelerated and how they are transported, both close to the Sun and into interplanetary space, are still not understood. Signatures of accelerated electrons and hot plasma are readily observed in X-rays. In the past decade we have made a lot of progress in understanding solar flares with X-ray data from the RHESSI satellite. I will describe how RHESSI observes solar flares and give some highlights of what we have learnt about plasma heating, electron acceleration, and electron transport during flares. I further also provide an outlook to future observations of solar activity with ESA's Solar Orbiter which will be launched in 2018.