The solar corona provides a rich environment for many types of wave-particle-shock interactions. Understanding these processes is not only of fundamental importance from a theoretical point of view, this understanding allows for an improved description of the drivers of Space Weather. These drivers include the fast and slow solar wind; Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs); Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs); and flares which produce energetic photons and SEPs. Impacts from Space Weather can have deleterious effects on space-based systems and technologies upon which we are heavily dependent. In order to obtain a better understanding of the origins and evolution of these types of phenomena, our group develops novel instrumentation for making remote sensing observations of the source regions of Space Weather.  We use these data to develop empirical and theoretical models of the observed plasma processes, which will lead to an improved predictive capability for Space Weather.

Some current and proposed research projects include the following: the Ultraviolet Coronal Spectrometer (UVCS) and Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) instruments on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO); the Ultraviolet Spectro-Coronagraph (UVSC) Pathfinder (a Space Test Program rideshare to be launched in Fall 2021); and the planned Extreme Ultraviolet High-Throughput Spectroscopic Telescope (EUVST). The Laboratory has excellent facilities for instrumentation testing and development, optical and materials research; and a high performance computation center to conduct these investigations.

key words

Solar Corona; Space Weather; Instrumentation; Solar Energetic Particles; Coronal Mass Ejections; Coronal Shocks; Solar Flares

Citizenship:  Open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents

Level:  Open to Postdoctoral applicants