My research
My research focuses on the understanding of energy release and particle acceleration in solar flares, as well as the physical mechanisms during a flare. I use data from the X-ray satellite RHESSI
The largest improvement of RHESSI compared to its predecessors is the high spectral and spatial resolution over a wide energy range.
This allows producing nice pictures as the one shown here and even better, analyzing the spectra of each of the sources individually ( = imaging spectroscopy). During my PhD work we found strong indications that particle acceleration really takes place near or in the coronal source. Further we found the simple models which try to explain the connection between the coronal emission and the footpoint emission (originating from the chromosphere) do not fit the RHESSI observations.
To find out more about this research, try one of the RHESSI nuggets I wrote: Small is steep and Three is company.
