**** Please find below the full newsletter for 1st July 2009 ***** UK Solar Physics Newsletter Lyndsay Fletcher & Duncan Mackay, Editors July 1st 2009 o News, Views and Gossip o Apology. o Near Universe Advisory Panel message to community June 09 o New RHESSI Science Nugget o Solar News Items of Interest - http://solarnews.nso.edu/2009/20090622.txt o Space Weather Media Viewer: An Education Outreach Tool o Meetings, Conferences and Workshops o Deadline approaching: Registration for STFC Advanced Summer School in Solar Terrestrial Physics o Solar Magnetic Fields and the Dynamic Sun - Celebrating the Career of Prof E.R. Priest o ANGLO-FRENCH MHD MEETING, CAMBRIDGE 14-15 SEPTEMBER 2009 o "Science with Large Solar Telescopes": 1st EAST - ATST Workshop in Solar Physics o STFC Introductory Summer School in Solar System Physics - 2nd Announcement o Solar News Items of Interest: http://solarnews.nso.edu/2009/20090622.txt o Workshop on Time-Distance Helioseismology and Helioseismic Holography, Stanford, CA, July 20-22, 2009 o Deciphering the Universe through Spectroscopy o Early Registration Deadline Approaching for SOHO-23: Understanding a Peculiar Solar Minimum, 21-25 September 2009 o Final Announcement , 25th NSO Workshop : Chromospheric Structure and Dynamics o Second announcement: Helicity Thinkshop on Solar Physics o SDO/HMI Science Team Meeting, September 8-11, 2009, Stanford, CA o First announcement: HELAS-IV International Conference "Seismological Challenges for Stellar Structure", 1-5 February 2010 o Employment Opportunities o POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH ASSISTANT IN MAGNETHYDRODYNAMICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE o Doctoral Studentship available in the Space Science Centre at the University of Sussex o Solar News Items of Interest - http://solarnews.nso.edu/2009/20090622.txt o Post-doctoral Fellowship at the Space Physics and Energetic Particles Group, Mahidol University, Thailand o TWO POSTDOCTORAL POSITIONS ON SOLAR MAGNETISM AND HYDRODYNAMICS AT THE IAC (deadline for applications: July 1st, 2009) o 3-YEAR POSTDOCTORAL POSITION AT THE IAC (deadline for applications: July 1st, 2009) o JAXA International Top Young Fellowship o Fellowships for PhD students in Solar System Physics Dear Colleague, Here are a few items which have come to our attention since the last Newsletter. You can find this newsletter also at the UKSP website: http://www.uksolphys.org Lyndsay (lyndsay@astro.gla.ac.uk) Duncan (duncan@mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk) ********************************************************************* * * * News, Views and Gossip * * * ********************************************************************* From: Editors The Editors would like to apologise for any confusion over the newsletter sent out this morning dated 1 August 2009. Below is the full news letter for 1st July 2009. Regards Editors ***************************************** From: "Pritchard, S (Sarah-Jane)" Near Universe Advisory Panel message to community June 09 The members of NUAP would like to express their thanks for the positive responses that were received to the Web-based questionnaire. NUAP is now embarking on the difficult task of collating the responses into one document. A draft of this document will be made available on 7th July. You will again be given an opportunity to provide further input to the development of the prioritised road map at a community meeting to be held, as planned, on 9th July. The meeting will take place in the Lecture Theatre of the Royal Astronomical Society, Burlington House, Piccadilly, London and will start at 13:30. Tea and coffee will be provided. The Ground Based Facilities Review is holding an open meeting at the same venue in the morning to enable those with overlapping interests to attend both sessions. To register for the NUAP community meeting please send an e-mail to: nuap@stfc.ac.uk before 3rd July 2009. Thank you, Rosemary Young (on behalf of NUAP) ************************************ From: Hugh Hudson Announcing a new RHESSI Science Nugget: "Do solar decimetric spikes originate in coronal X-ray sources?" by Arnold Benz and Marina Battaglia. It presents a surprise: the radio and hard X-ray positions do not agree! http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/wiki/index.php/RHESSI_Science_Nuggets S. Christe H. Hudson ********************************************************************* * * * Conferences, Workshops, Meetings * * * ********************************************************************* From: Bill Chaplin 2009 STFC Advanced Summer School in Solar Terrestrial Physics University of Birmingham, September 7 - 11 ** REGISTRATION DEADLINE (July 6) APPROACHING ** "An astrophysical Rosetta Stone: Observational & Theoretical Perspectives of the Sun" The Sun is a Rosetta stone for astrophysics. Its close proximity affords a unique opportunity to study a star to levels of detail and precision not possible for other stars. The Sun is also an "astrophysical laboratory", allowing us to test fundamental physics under the exotic conditions found in the solar atmosphere and solar interior. The influences that the Sun has on the terrestrial environment, and the various links from the solar interior to the Earth, are part of a major theme in the STFC Road Map. The School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Birmingham will host the annual STFC Advanced Summer School in Solar Physics from Monday 7th to Friday 11th September 2009. The aim of the School is to provide PhD students and PDRAs with a firm grounding in various aspects of solar physics, with talks from subject experts in the UK solar physics community. There will also be an opportunity for attendees to make short presentations on their own work. Full details may be found on the School web pages, at: http://octave.ph.bham.ac.uk/ASSSP2009/ Registration details may be found at: http://octave.ph.bham.ac.uk/ASSSP2009/reg.php ********************************************* From: Ineke de Moortel Meeting Announcement: "Solar Magnetic Fields and the Dynamic Sun - Celebrating the Career of Prof E.R. Priest" Royal Astronomical Society Specialist Discussion Meeting Geological Society Lecture Theatre, Burlington Place, Piccadilly 13 November 2009 Aim of the Meeting: Celebrating the career of Prof E.R. Priest, this meeting will focus on our understanding of solar magnetic fields, through observations, theory and modelling. Speakers will address the present state of knowledge of topics such as magnetic reconnection, large-scale magnetic field structure, flux emergence, with emphasis on Prof. Priest's contributions. Future directions required to further our understanding of solar magnetic fields and the role of magnetic fields throughout the universe will also be discussed. More information on the meeting can be found at: http://www-solar.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/~ineke/RAS09/ras09.html Note that attendance is free for RAS members and 15 pounds for non-members (5 pounds for students - but they can join the RAS for 1 pound!). To submit an abstract for an oral or poster contribution to this meeting, please send the following information to Ineke De Moortel (ineke@mcs.st-and.ac.uk) before Friday 2nd October (contributed talks) or Friday 23rd October (posters). **Please include 'abstract RAS09' in the subject of your email.** ######################################################################## Name: Institution: Email: Preference: oral or poster? (delete as appropriate) Title of contribution: Abstract (maximum 200 words): ######################################################################## ********************************************* From: Michael Proctor ANGLO-FRENCH MHD MEETING, CAMBRIDGE 14-15 SEPTEMBER 2009 The French GDR group will this year be organizing their annual meeting in Cambridge. Any UK researcher in MHD (astrophysical or otherwise) is warmly invited to attend. Full details of the meeting are given at the following web address: http://www.phys.ens.fr/~dormy/MHD/DAMTP09/ We would encourage early registration as there is limited en-suite accommodation. We will be sure to accommodate all who wish to attend but other accommodation may be non en suite, or more expensive, than the price currently quoted. Dr Lara Silvers DAMTP University of Cambridge ********************************************** From: Sarah Matthews "Science with Large Solar Telescopes": 1st EAST - ATST Workshop in Solar Physics This workshop addresses the science to be done with solar telescopes of an aperture beyond 1 meter. It is held as a joint EAST-ATST workshop and demonstrates the common interests of the European and US solar physics community toward next-generation, large-aperture solar telescopes. The workshop will summarize the scientific justification of these telescope projects, review the current status of relevant solar physics topics, establish new insights in solar physics theory that can only be verified with the new large telescopes. The workshop will furthermore present the status of current projects, reviews recent accomplishments with today's large facilities and discusses emerging techniques and tools. Venue: University of Freiburg, (downtown Freiburg). Date: Wed., Oct 14 2009, morning, to Fri, Oct 16 2009, afternoon Scientific Organizing Committee: Mats Carlsson, M. Collados Vera, A. Kucera, J. Kuhn, P. Goode, M. Knoelker, O. von der Luehe (chair), T. Rimmele, H. Socas Navarro, G. Scharmer, R. Schlichenmaier, W. Schmidt Local Organization: Further information about registration, travel, proceedings, etc. will be provided in the Second Announcement, and on the conference web page: http://www.astro-east.org/index.php?id=464 Draft program: 1. Introductory Keynote talk 2. Big Science to be addressed with Big Telescopes What are the scientific objectives with which we justify the expenses of the multi-meter class of solar telescopes? How have these objectives changed due to recent progress of physical insight and how may these objectives change due to future progress? Which discoveries are we expected to obtain with 4m-class telescopes? What do today's theories and numerical simulations tell us that can be verified only with telescopes exceeding today's apertures? To which extent can coordinated observations help improving our understanding of the Sun? Summary of accomplishments with current large telescopes, limited to SST, Hinode, first results from Sunrise. 3. Next Generation Large Telescopes Presentations of ATST, EST, BBSO NST, Gregor, NST India. 4. Tools and Techniques Next generation instrumentation, data acquisition, analysis, and interpretation methods from adaptive optics to (magnetic field) diagnostic tools and modeling. ********************************************** From: Sarah Matthews STFC Introductory Summer School in Solar System Physics - 2nd Announcement Registration Deadline - 14 August 2009 This year's STFC Introductory Summer School in Solar-Terrestrial Physics will be held at University College London during the week of 13-18 September 2009. The school is open to all new students and researchers in the area of solar system physics and the programme includes: Introduction to MHD Introduction to the solar interior: dynamo theory Emergence and evolution of magnetic flux in the solar atmosphere The solar atmosphere and solar activity Solar wind and the IMF The terrestrial magnetosphere The ionosphere and space weather Observing from space ? an overview Observing from the ground ? an overview Rockets ? a practical session Climate change and solar variability The middle atmosphere Planetary atmospheres Magnetospheres: throughout the universe Ask the panel ? how to write a successful thesis, careers X-ray and radio emission from solar system objects Extra-solar planets Further details and the registration form can be found at: http://zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk/~stfc09/ [zuserver2.star.ucl.ac.uk] Sarah Matthews & Alan Aylward *********************************************************************** * * * Positions Vacant * * * *********************************************************************** From: Gunnar Hornig UNIVERSITY OF DUNDEE COLLEGE OF ART, SCIENCE & ENGINEERING SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING, PHYSICS & MATHEMATICS POSTDOCTORAL RESEARCH ASSISTANT IN MAGNETHYDRODYNAMICS Grade 7 (Salary ?28,839) Applications are invited for a three year postdoctoral research position in the area of Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD). The position is available in connection with an STFC grant `Quantifying magnetic fluxes and reconnection rates in complex fields?. It is the aim of this project to identify and quantify the effect of reconnection events in complex magnetic fields on the topological structure of the field. This is of importance for our understanding of the relaxation of complex magnetic fields as encountered for instance in the solar corona. The ideal candidate will have a good knowledge of MHD and in particular magnetic reconnection as well as extensive experience with numerical MHD codes and code development. Applicants must hold a PhD in solar physics, plasma physics or applied mathematics by the start of the project. The successful candidate will join a young and growing MHD group at Dundee which currently consists of two permanent members of Staff (Drs G Hornig and D Pontin) a research fellow (Dr A Wilmot-Smith) and two PhD students. The group has access to a large Beowulf parallel computer. The position is available from September 2009. Informal enquiries can be made to Dr Gunnar Hornig, Division of Mathematics, e-mail: gunnar@maths.dundee.ac.uk Applications in the form of a CV and covering letter, including the names and addresses of 3 referees, should be sent to Human Resources, University of Dundee, DD1 4HN. HOW TO APPLY: Further details and an application pack are available from our website: www.jobs.dundee.ac.uk Alternatively, contact Personnel Services, University of Dundee, Dundee, DD1 4HN, tel: (01382) 384817 (answering machine). Please quote Reference number AAE/2826 Applicants will only be contacted if invited for interview. Closing date: 14 July 2009 The University of Dundee is committed to equal opportunities and welcomes applications from all sections of the community. ******************************************** From: Andy Buckley Doctoral Studentship available in the Space Science Centre at the University of Sussex to start in October 2009 A DPhil studentship funded by a University bursary scheme is available to start from October 2009 to work on space or fusion plasma applications. The three year bursary is part of the Graduate Teaching Assistantship and covers payment of both University fees (Home/EU rate) and an annual living allowance equivalent to that of UK EPSRC/STFC research councils (currently ?13,290 per annum). Application areas include current and future space plasma missions, simulation of ion drives and fusion plasmas. For further information please see http://www.sussex.ac.uk/space-science or contact Dr. Andy Buckley (A.M.Buckley@sussex.ac.uk) by the 8th July 2009.