UK Solar Physics Newsletter Lyndsay Fletcher & Duncan Mackay, Editors June 15th 2010 o News, Views and Gossip o Physics of Solar Prominences: Two review papers o New RHESSI Science Nuggets o News on Prof George Gelfreikh o Sixth Triennial Special Issue - "Images in Plasma Science" o Solar News Items of interest - http://solarnews.nso.edu/2010/20100602.txt o Web-based Online Catalog of Solar Limb Prominences (SLIPCAT) o The 2013 - 2022 NRC Decadal Survey in Solar and Space Physics http://solarnews.nso.edu/2010/20100615.txt o SDO/AIA test data now available o Living Reviews in Solar Physics: "The Sun's Supergranulation" o SDO AIA data available via the VSO o TRACE mission ending o Meetings, Conferences and Workshops o Second Announcement: Fifth Solar Image Processing Workshop o Solar News Items of interest http://solarnews.nso.edu/2010/20100602.txt o The Origin, Evolution, and Diagnosis of Solar Flare Magnetic Fields and Plasmas : Honoring the Contributions of Dick Canfield o First Announcement: XXII Canary Islands Winter School of Astrophysics on "Asteroseismology" (November 15-26, 2010) o 10th RHESSI Workshop, Annapolis, Maryland, August 1 - 5, 2010 o INTERNATIONAL ADVANCED SCHOOL ON SPACE WEATHER MODELLING AND APPLICATIONS o The European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC) 2010 in Rome, Italy - Session MG6 "Solar Wind - Magnetosphere - Ionosphere interactions throughout the solar system" http://solarnews.nso.edu/2010/20100615.txt o SHINE Workshop 2010 o Planning a New Flare/CME/SEP Mission o 10th RHESSI Workshop: Important Deadlines o Local Helioseismology Workshop, August 2-6, 2010, Stanford o Employment Opportunities o Fellowships for PhD Students in Solar System Physics o Starlink (Astrophysics Research) Computer Manage o Solar News Items of interest http://solarnews.nso.edu/2010/20100602.txt o Associate Professorship in Observational Stellar Astrophysics o MMS Mission Education and Public Outreach Lead http://solarnews.nso.edu/2010/20100615.txt o Fellowships for PhD Students in Solar System Physics o JOB OPPORTUNITY: Electronics Engineer Position at University of Kiel, Germany o JOB OPPORTUNITY: Post-doctoral Position at University of Kiel, Germany 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: Nicolas Labrosse - n.labrosse@physics.gla.ac.uk Physics of Solar Prominences: Two review papers We are pleased to announce the publication by Space Science Reviews of a special issue dedicated to solar prominence physics (Space Science Reviews: Volume 151, Issue 4 2010) http://www.springerlink.com/content/w72727487478/?p=06434ef68acb406faafa8729e5a32271&pi=0 Two review papers present our current understanding and the outstanding issues in the following areas: Paper I: Spectral Diagnostics and Non-LTE Modelling N. Labrosse, P. Heinzel, J.-C. Vial, T. Kucera, S. Parenti, S. Gunar, B. Schmieder, and G. Kilper. Space Science Reviews: Volume 151, Issue 4 (2010), Page 243 http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.1620 The paper discusses topics relating to: - the spectral inversion for the cool prominence plasma and for the prominence-to-corona transition region, - determination of bulk motions and mass, - basics of radiative transfer for spectral diagnostics based on optically thick lines, and - non-LTE modelling of prominences. Paper II: Magnetic Structure and Dynamics D.H. Mackay, J.T. Karpen, J.L. Ballester, B. Schmieder and G. Aulanier. Space Science Reviews: Volume 151, Issue 4 (2010), Page 333 http://arxiv.org/abs/1001.1635 The paper discusses recent advances in our understanding of: - prominence magnetic structure (observations and theory), - formation and dynamics of prominence plasmas, - MHD waves in prominences, and - formation and large-scale patterns of filament channels. On behalf of all co-authors, Nicolas Labrosse and Duncan Mackay ************************************ From: Hugh Hudson - hhudson@ssl.berkeley.edu New RHESSI Science Nugget http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/wiki/index.php/RHESSI_Science_Nuggets Can optical spectra of stellar flares be compared with images of solar flares? http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/wiki/index.php/Kernels_and_Ribbons "Kernels and Ribbons" by Jiong Qiu. There is a new clue to distinguishing UV ribbons and hard X-ray footpoints in a major flare, discovered during a revisit to the Bastille Day flare. See http://sprg.ssl.berkeley.edu/~tohban/wiki/index.php/Kernels_and_Ribbons ************************************ From: Lyndsay Fletcher - lyndsay@astro.gla.ac.uk Prof George Gelfreikh I am passing on this sad news from Ludwig Klein, Chair of CESRA (Community of European Solar Radio Astronomers) Lyndsay. Dear CESRA colleagues, Alexander Stepanov informed me that on June 4, 2010, Professor George Gelfreikh passed away. Professor Gelfreikh was a remarkable colleague in several respects. An incomplete enumeration that does not do justice to his achievements comprises the use of microwaves as a diagnostic of the solar corona - many of us learned from his work with RATAN 600 about the rich potential that radio astronomy has in probing coronal magnetic fields. More recently he worked on microwave oscillations using the Nobeyama Radioheliograph. Besides, he had a distinct sense of humour that pervaded his conference talks and made them particular events. CESRA expresses its condolences to George Gelfreikh's family and colleagues. Ludwig Klein, on behalf of the CESRA board ************************************* From: Nicolas Labrosse - n.labrosse@physics.gla.ac.uk Sixth Triennial Special Issue - "Images in Plasma Science" http://uigelz.eecs.umich.edu/tps-images/index.html The IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science is pleased to announce the 6th Triennial Special Issue on "Images in Plasma Science" to be published August 2011. Compelling images convey vast amounts of data as well as often being works of art in their own right. In acknowledgement of the importance of imagery the Special Issue will present unique experimentally or computationally generated images of plasma phenomena which provide insight to the physics and which are artful. Contributions to the Images Special Issue are restricted to 2 pages in the journal-one page for the image and one page for text. The deadline for submissions is 1 December 2010. For additional information and important submission instructions: Announcement: http://uigelz.eecs.umich.edu/tps-images/index.html Submission instructions: http://uigelz.eecs.umich.edu/tps-images/submission-instructions.html Please direct questions to the Guest Editors at: images@eecs.umich.edu Dr. Natalia Y. Babaeva Dr. Julia Falkovitch-Khain Prof. Mark J. Kushner University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA Guest Editors ********************************************************************* * * * Conferences, Workshops, Meetings * * * ********************************************************************* > From Jack Ireland - Jack.Ireland@nasa.gov Second Announcement: Fifth Solar Image Processing Workshop http://www.sipwork.org/sipworkV Registration for the Fifth Solar Image Processing Workshop is now open at http://www.sipwork.org/sipworkV/registration/ The workshop is located at Eurotel Victoria, Les Diablerets, Switzerland September 12-16, 2010 (http://www.sipwork.org/sipworkV/). We have negotiated a special rate at the conference hotel; for CHF230/night ($200, EUR165, GBP136) we provide accommodation, breakfast, lunch, dinner and coffee/tea for the duration of the meeting. The meeting location is in a village in the Swiss Alps, so alternative accommodation is sparse. Participants are strongly encouraged to register at the conference hotel to take advantage of this rate. The fifth Solar Image Processing Workshop will concentrate on the role played by solar image processing as we enter the petabyte era of solar physics. For example, the Solar Dynamics Observatory vastly increases the amount of data we have about our Sun, and solar image processing is taking a central role in reducing SDO and other data into useful information about the underlying physics. We are pleased to confirm at this time four invited speakers - Piet Martens (Harvard-Smithsonian), discussing the SDO Science Center and the image processing techniques being used there, Michaele Piana (University of Genoa), discussing inverse problems in relation to image processing, Ian Jermyn (INRIA-Sophia), discussing image segmentation, and Mark Butala (UIUC), discussing three dimensional coronal structure reconstruction. The structure of the workshop is as follows. The morning is given over to talks presentations, with all breaks also being poster sessions. Participants are expected to attend all talks and poster sessions. In the afternoons, the conference splits into splinter sessions, where the following subject areas are covered. We solicit contributions in these areas. (1) Solar Eruptive Events This session examines solar eruptive events of all types such as flares and coronal mass ejections, including: - detectable precursors - automated tracking of events via image processing algorithms - physics of eruptive events - energy and mass storage in the corona - flow into the extended solar atmosphere - prediction of eruption (2) Solar Disk Features This session deals with all types of features and events on the solar disk and how they may be tracked in time, space and wavelength. Topics of particular interest are: - prediction of the emergence of active regions - automated tracking of features in time, space and wavelength during their passage across the disc. - cataloging of features and the comparison of feature catalogs - detection of changes to solar features with time as precursors to shorter time-scale behavior such as flares and prominence eruptions. - physics of sunspots, coronal holes, filaments/prominences and other solar features (3) Reconstruction of the 3-D solar atmosphere This session deals with the reconstruction of the true structure of the solar atmosphere from multiple viewpoints, wavelengths and times. Topics of particular interest are: - reconstruction of the three-dimensional dynamics of coronal mass ejections as a function of time - propagation of 3-dimensional structures in the extended solar atmosphere - three-dimensional structure of coronal magnetic fields - changes in three-dimensional structure in time as a precursor to subsequent events (4) Differential emission measure, solar activity and irradiance reconstruction This session deals with the differential emission measure (DEM) of various solar features; how solar activity changes the DEM, and the reconstruction of the solar irradiance spectrum from the spatial features we see on the Sun. Topics of particular interest are: - DEM reconstruction methods - using DEM to recover the physics of solar features - connecting DEM to the observed spatial and temporal behavior of solar features - reconstruction of the irradiance spectrum. Limited funding is available for students who wish to attend the conference. Please contact the Chair of the Science Organizing Committee (Jack.Ireland@nasa.gov) stating - name - institution - proposed contribution (title + abstract + presentation type - talk or poster) - A short paragraph on why you want to attend this meeting, Students will be selected for funding on a first come, first served basis and on the suitability of their work with respect to the stated areas of interest of the workshop. If you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact the SOC and LOC chairs at the email addresses below. See you in Switzerland in September! LOC Chair: Andre Csillaghy, University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland (andre.csillaghy@fhnw.ch) SOC Chair: Jack Ireland, ADNET Systems Inc./NASA GSFC (Jack.Ireland@nasa.gov) *********************************************************************** * * * Positions Vacant * * * *********************************************************************** From: Dieter Schmitt - schmitt@mps.mpg.de Fellowships for PhD Students in Solar System Physics www.solar-system-school.de The "International Max Planck Research School on Physical Processes in the Solar System and Beyond" at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Katlenburg-Lindau, and the Universities of Braunschweig and Goettingen, Germany, offers excellent research possibilities for students to obtain a PhD degree in a 3-years graduate program. The program covers the full range of physics inherent in the field of solar system science from geophysics and planetary physics to solar physics as well as the underlying fundamental physics. The science program is complemented by training in computational physics, space technology and project management. High-profile space missions, outstanding projects for ground- based instruments and data analysis, as well as theoretical and extensive numerical modeling provide a wide range of research possibilities for PhD students. Applications for the program are open to highly-qualified and well-motivated students from all countries. A prerequisite is a diploma or master of science degree in physics or a related field, including a corresponding thesis. Proficiency in English is required. The next PhD program will start in January 2011, review of application begins on 1 August 2010. Successful applicants will receive adequate financial support. The application documents should include a CV, the filled application form (see web page), copies of university certificates and two letters of recommendation. The application can be send either by mail or by email (preferentially one attachment in pdf format). For details on the IMPRS program and the application procedure, please visit http://www.solar-system-school.de or email to info@solar-system-school.de Address applications to Dr. Dieter Schmitt Coordinator IMPRS Solar System School Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research Max-Planck-Str. 2 37191 Katlenburg-Lindau Germany Tel: +49 5556 979 431 Fax: +49 5556 979 190 ******************************************** From: Silvia Dalla - sdalla@uclan.ac.uk Starlink (Astrophysics Research) Computer Manager http://www.star.uclan.ac.uk Salary: Grade F- ?22,879-?26,523, Limited Term Contract for 3 Years Closing Date: 9 July 2010 Applications are invited for the post of computer manager (Starlink system administrator), to support and maintain a heterogeneous 30-workstation Linux and Mac OS X network for astrophysics research within the Jeremiah Horrocks Institute (JHI) at UCLan. The successful candidate will be expected to work with the Institute's staff to help support and facilitate their research, and to provide education and guidance in the use of available and novel technical solutions. Depending on the requirements of the main duties of the post, there may be opportunities to contribute to collaborative research projects within the JHI. Current research expertise and interests of JHI staff include solar and solar-terrestrial physics, stellar and galactic astrophysics, extragalactic astronomy and cosmology, observational computational and theoretical astrophysics. (For details of the JHI and Astrophysics at UCLan, please visit www.star.uclan.ac.uk .) The duties will include management of the JHI's network and associated equipment, and provision of local user support to staff. The post will involve maintenance of scientific software packages (for example IDL, IRAF, Super Mongo and R), the upkeep and enhancement of current shared storage solutions, help with the design of new systems, purchase of new hardware, and the writing of documentation for effective use of the network. The postholder will also contribute to the maintenance of the JHI website, and will be expected to develop ways to maintain the health of the network. Candidates should have a BSc Honours degree and a higher degree in a relevant subject, at least 3 years' experience using Linux or other relevant UNIX OS including software installation, and an understanding of networking hardware and firewall configuration. Preference will be given to candidates with experience of research in astrophysics, astrophysics-related software, and/or a PhD (awarded or imminent) in physics or astronomy. The JHI is located on UCLan's main campus, on a pleasant site near the centre of Preston, England?s newest city. For further information on UCLan's location and facilities, including our HPC Facility, our Sports Arena and new Indoor Sports Centre, please visit www.uclan.ac.uk. Immediately outside the city is the Forest of Bowland Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, whilst the Lake District, Peak District and Yorkshire Dales National Parks are each only an hour away. Preston has excellent communications by rail and motorway with the rest of the country: London, Edinburgh and Glasgow are all less than 2.5 hours away by direct train. Preston has many parks and green spaces for outdoor activities, a plethora of pubs and clubs and a vibrant city centre only a few minutes? walk from the university. There are numerous cultural events, both in Preston and in nearby Manchester. Informal enquiries can be directed to Silvia Dalla. Further information can be found at: http://www.uclan.ac.uk/information/services/work/144A-11-06.php Reference: 144A-11-06 Hours: Full time Closing Date: 9 July 2010 at 4pm Interview Date: 1st Week of August -- Dr Duncan H Mackay Mathematical Institute, University of St. Andrews, St. Andrews, Fife, KY16 9SS, Scotland. Tel 01334 463760 Fax 01334 463748 The University of St Andrews is a charity registered in Scotland : No SC013532 _______________________________________________ uksp mailing list uksp@physics.gla.ac.uk http://www.physics.gla.ac.uk/mailman/listinfo/uksp