Conor MacBride 

Current research project

Energy Dissipation in Solar Physics

The research consists of studying the processes behind energy dissipation in the lower solar atmosphere by examining the Sun in high-resolution photospheric and chromospheric observations. In particular, the focus is on the generation, propagation and dissipation of magnetoacoustic waves, which are channelled through the solar atmosphere by the strong magnetic fields synonymous with sunspots.

Previous observational work has shown that observationally derived Fourier spectra in the lower solar atmosphere are governed by a power law relationship. What is currently unknown is how the spectral slopes change depending on the underlying physical mechanisms at work.

Data-driven numerical simulations will be used to model the solar atmosphere in 3D. The spectral slopes will be investigated, and the initialisation parameters of the model will be modified until the characteristics of the real solar atmosphere are recreated, thus allowing the underlying wave physics to be readily constrained.

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