William Bate (He/Him)

 

Current research project

High Frequency Waves in the Solar Atmosphere

One of the biggest unanswered questions in our solar system is the ‘coronal heating problem’. The question is how the Sun’s atmosphere is many orders of magnitude hotter than the solar surface below it. One suggested mechanism for this heating, and what my work focuses on, is magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves in the solar atmosphere. Using high spatial and temporal resolution observations taken with telescopes such as the DST, along with future observations taken during solar eclipses, I hope to be able to characterise the energy carried and deposited by these waves into the solar atmosphere. Of particular interest to me are observations of waves within chromospheric spicules and fibrils, as these are ideal conduits for wave energy to propagate into the outer solar atmosphere.

Biography

 

Prior to my PhD, I completed my MSc by Research and BSc in Physics at the University of Warwick. My MSc project involved investigating the validity of assumptions made when modelling sausage oscillations in coronal loops. My BSc project concerned the theoretical interpretation of slow magnetoacoustic oscillations observed in solar coronal loops. I am now focussing on observational solar physics for my PhD which I started in September 2020.

 

Research interests

• MHD waves
• Spicules/fibrils
• Coronal heating

Pure page

https://pure.qub.ac.uk/en/persons/will-bate