PhD project in Space and Solar Plasma Physics Queen Mary, University of London

PhD project in Space and Solar Plasma Physics Queen Mary, University of London

Applications are invited for a SEPnet funded (South-East Physics network, http://www.sepnet. ac.uk/) PhD Studentship within the Astronomy Unit, School of Mathematical Sciences, Queen Mary University of London (QMUL).

The project is related to exciting, major unsolved problems of solar physics such as coronal heating http://imagine. gsfc.nasa. gov/docs/ science/mysterie s_l1/corona. html and solar flare dynamics. Type III radio bursts are believed to come from solar flare electrons that travel upwards, away from the Sun, on open magnetic field lines. The proposed work aims to fill the gap in understanding how the upwards moving electrons are accelerated and produce the observed radio emission. This will be achieved through kinetic-scale modelling of the phenomenon and numerical simulation results will be compared with radio and other wavelength observations. The project benefits from access to large-scale parallel 1000 core processor cluster via UKMHD consortium, while the radio data will be available via participation of QMUL in LOFAR-UK and SEPnet Astro consortia (http://astro. kent.ac.uk/ SEPNET/). The LOw Frequency ARray, LOFAR (http://www.lofar- uk.org/), is a next-generation software-driven telescope currently under construction in the Netherlands and UK.