Thursday, May 28, 2015, 16:00
WHGA/Auditorium
Gordon Hurford, FHNW Windish and Univ. of California, Berkeley
Abstract:
The Sun is a powerful and remarkably efficient electron and ion particle accelerator operating at keV to GeV energies. The acceleration is powered by magnetic reconnection during solar flares and coronal mass ejections. In this talk, we discuss progress in understanding these processes using imaging/spectroscopy of the resulting x-rays and gamma-rays. The most recent observations have been made with RHESSI, a NASA mission launched in 2002 and still operating well. The RHESSI instrument features segmented but unpixelized germanium detectors and a PSI-built imager. The latter uses a novel technique to provide images from 3 keV to 16 MeV with up to 2ΒΌ arcsecond resolution. Future prospects for extending these results include STIX, a new x-ray imaging spectrometer scheduled for launch in 2019, that is being developed by a European consortium led by the Swiss group at FHNW.