PROJECTS
An overview of the solar group at Queen's University can be found here. The work is closely linked to the work on cool stars. The projects in which I have some involvement are listed below.
This is the topic of of my PhD, full details of which can be found on the chromospheric oscillations page. This project has been extended via two observing runs on the Dunn Solar Telescope, Sacramento Peak / National Solar Observatory . Instrumentation at this telescope was used to obtain multi-wavelength observations of the quiet sun over a longer time series and at higher cadence than the observations obtained in September 1998. The new data set also contains Advanced Solar Polarimeter maps of the photospheric magnetic field. This data set will be reduced by Shaun as part of his PhD. Many thanks go to the observers at NSO- Doug, Joe and Mike. The dataset obtained was due to their sterling efforts, despite the many problems encountered (the least of which were the cloudy weather and the numerous moths). We also owe Prof. B. Lites at the High Altitude Observatory, Colorado, thanks for helping us out with the ASP data reduction.
I am involved in the analysis of data taken during the solar eclipse of 11-Aug-1999 with SECIS (Solar Eclipse Corona Imaging System), a system built to look for high frequency oscillations and fast changes in emission from coronal features, typically high-lying active region loops. These high frequency oscillations could be candidates to help solve the ongoing coronal heating problem. More information on SECIS, and its upgraded version (RDI) can also be found below . David William's page at MSSL contains more information on the SECIS project. David led the project at QUB while doing his PhD; Dr. Athannasis Katsiyannis is also heavily involved in the project at QUB ,along with Prof. Francis Keenan and Dr Mihalis Mathioudakis. Other members of the team (outside QUB) are Dr Peter Gallagher, Dr Ken Phillips and Dr Pawel Rudawy.
The 1999 eclipse data yielded several interesting results. Original work by Williams et al. (2001) showed a 6 second oscillation throughout a coronal loop, with follow up work by Williams et al. (2002) showing this 6 second oscillation to belong to a travelling wave. The undeniable presence of a travelling wave in this data has lead to several further citations. Modelling is in progress at the minute to see if this if this could be a MHD wave travelling along the loop, and if so, to discover the mode of the MHD oscillation. Continued research by Katsiyannis et al. (2002) found further oscillations in the 3-7 second range in neighbouring loops. Data taken in Lusaka, Zambia during the eclipse of 21-June-2001 will help to advance the research in this area.
This project was initiated at Goddard Space Flight Centre by Peter Gallagher and Jack Ireland. We use archive MDI images of active regions to developer an understanding of the flaring potential of different types of photospheric magnetic complexities. This includes work using fractal analysis, and information theory. A basic description of this work can found at this press release
We carry out an extensive project into high cadence imaging of the solar atmosphere. Our goal is to develop a highly portable, self contained, dual CCD high cadence imaging system. This can then be transported to various solar telescopes to obtain multi-wavelength observations. The Rapid Dual Imager (RDI) has been tested recently at Big Bear Solar Observatory and is currently receiving some minor adjustments to the custom wrote software. This press release has some information on RDI.