David Alexander
Head of Group
Office: Herman Brown 358
Phone:(713) 348-3633
Email: dalex@rice.edu

Research Interests:
Flares/CMEs: Energetic particle acceleration and transport; flare energetics and dynamics; thermal/non-thermal evolution; CME initiation; CME acceleration and low coronal evolution; filament eruptions and their relation to CMEs; role of sunspot rotation in creating and evolving sigmoid active regions prior to eruption; role of helicity in eruption of CMEs.

Active Region Evolution: Role of twist and writhe helicity in the dynamical evolution of sunspots, analysis of sunspot and sunspot group rotation, statistical studies of flare producing magnetic configurations, development of source conditions in the build-up to large Solar Energetic Particle events.

Active region simulation and modeling:Simulation of EUV and Soft X-ray emission in active regions, particularly for studying coronal heating and to provide simulated data for application to image reconstruction techniques for STEREO mission

Stellar Cycles: Exploration of soft X-ray emission from Sun as a proxy for other active stars and, in particular, what we can learn about the apparent lack of stellar cycles in Sun-like stars.

Laboratory astrophysics: Experimentation in laboratory of solar phenomena, particularly dynamic consequences of the interaction of magnetic plasmoids with the ambient medium; application of these results to coronal jets and CMEs.

Magnetic reconnection: Observational evidence for presence of reconnection in  solar atmospheric phenomena; examination of reconnection rates in the solar atmosphere and comparison with prevailing theories.

Solar Sails (solar and magnetospheric missions):  Application of novel vantage points attainable by solar sails to explore solar and terrestrial physics domains not easily accessible with current propulsion technologies (e.g. out-of-ecliptic missions)             top

Markus Aschwanden
Adjunct Professor
Lockheed Martin Solar and Astrophysics Lab
Phone: (650) 424-4001
Email: aschwanden@lmsal.com

Research Interests:

• Observational Solar Physics: Data analysis and observations of the solar corona from space missions (in hard X-rays, soft X-rays, and EUV wavelengths). and ground-based instruments (in radio wavelengths).
• STEREO Sun Earth Connection Coronal and Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI).
• High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (HESSI),
• Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE),
• Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT),
• Yohkoh Hard X-Ray Telescope (HXT) and Soft X-Ray Telescope (SXT),
• COMPTON Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO), Burst and Transient Source Experiment (BATSE),
• Solar Maximum Mission (SMM), Hard X-Ray Burst Spectrometer (HXRBS),
• Very Large Array (VLA) interferometer,
• Radio spectrometers (IKARUS, PHOENIX-I, II) or ETH Zurich, Switzerland,

• Theoretical Solar Physics: Modeling, development of theorical models, and numerical simulations of phenomena in solar and stellar coronae.
• solar flare models
• magnetic energy release processes
• particle acceleration
• particle dynamics and kinematics
• wave-particle interactions
• plasma instabilities
• radio emission mechanisms, electron-cyclotron maser emission
• hard X-ray emission
• dynamics of nonlinear systems
• avalanche theory, self-organized criticality
• coronal heating, nanoflaring
• physical structure of the solar corona and active regions
• 3-dimensional image reconstruction
• stereoscopy, tomography, forward-fitting methods                                                  top

Research Interests:
Magnetic topology of active regions and non-potentiality, Origin of helicity production and injection in the corona,
Relationship between magnetic twist and writhe , kink instability,  Flare and CME triggering mechanisms,
Relationships between small-scale and large-scale magnetic fields.

Current Projects:

·  Sunspot rotation and Sigmoidal Active Regions

·  Exploring the dynamics of flux-emergence in magnetically-complex solar active regions                                                  top

Antoun Daou
Office: Herman Brown 328
Phone:(713) 348-3611
Email: agdaou@rice.edu

Research Interests:
Solar Flares, Hard X-ray Flux Saturation,  Electron Beam Stability, RHESSI studies, Image Reconstruction and Analysis, Magnetic Topology, CME/Flare Relationships,  Educational Outreach, Particle transport and acceleration in flare magnetic loops

Current Projects:

·  Hard X-ray emission in flares and its relation to magnetic topology

·  Fokker-Planck modeling of hard X-ray emission is flares through investigating electron temporal, spatial, energetic and directional distributions

·  Determination of the relationship between the nature of a prominence eruption and the pre-eruption mass variation

·  Studying different mechanisms responsible for filament activation

·  Studying chromospheric wave speeds                                                  top

Email: asandman@rice.edu

Research Interests:
Coronal Magnetic Fields, 3-D Morphology of Active Regions, Coronal Heating, and Simluation of Active Regions and Full-Sun Coronae.
Current Projects: 3-D visualizations of coronal magnetic fields                                                  top

Daniel Young

Email: dey3872@rice.edu

Research Interests:
Solar phenomena associated with CMEs, such as prominences and chromospheric waves; Non-erupting prominences
Current Projects:
Extracting quantitative velocity information using the 7-filter CHIP (He I 1083 nm) telescope located at the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory
Creating 3D reconstructions of prominences using STEREO                                                   top

Andrea Tinney

Email: andrea.tinney@rice.edu                                               top

Chunming Zhu

Email: cz3@rice.edu                                               top

Thomas Motter

Email: tm5@rice.edu

Current Projects:
Prominence dynamics

Matthew Diasio

Email: Matthew.A.Diasio@rice.edu

Current Projects:
Prominence dynamics

Former Members

Holly Gilbert

Email: hgilbert@rice.edu

Aaron Coyner

Phone: (713) 348-2651
Email: acoyner@rice.edu                      top

Gary Kilper

Phone: (713) 348-3514
Email: garyk@rice.edu                                  top