My research

The research I am carry out for my PhD can basically be summarised as

multiwavelength studies of fast particle acceleration in solar flares.

Primarily I am using hard x-ray imaging spectroscopy from the RHESSI 

satellite along with various radio diagnostics to attempt to understand

the mechanisms of particle acceleration and coronal mass supply in 

coronal HXR sources, in these events contrary to 'normal' flares, we 

see most of the HXR emission not at the footpoints of the flaring loop

but at the looptop.

We can use a combination of thermal and non - thermal x-ray emission and 

microwave emission from solar flares to extrapolate values for the temperature,

fast particle density, ambient plasma density, magnetic field etc and attempt 

to understand the particle acceleration mechanism, magnetic field structure 

and evaporation process.

Here is a nice RHESSI spectrum of one of the events I've been looking at;

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