Updates as I meander through my PhD, trying to understand waves on the Sun. A summary of my research can be found here.
Sometimes people ask me what I do. I say I am a solar physics researcher. And sometimes the conversation stops there.
But sometimes they want to know what that means. Like, do you research solar energy? No, I study the Sun itself, like astronomy but looking at our own star.
Magnetic fields, quantum tunnelling, gravitational waves? Full of jargon, science is understandably alien to many people. How can scientists make it easier to non-scientists to understand their work? By using only the most common 1000 words in the English language, of course!
Noémi Kinga Zsámberger, Robertus Erdélyi, and I have recently published a paper in The Astrophysical Journal analysing a further generalisation to the asymmetric slab waveguide model, now with an asymmetric magnetic field in the external plasma environment. We focus on potential application to oscillations of elongated magnetic bright points in inter-granular lanes, where even a small asymmetry in the parameters of the neighbouring granules could manifest itself as significant asymmetry in magneto-acoustic mode propagation. This analysis paves the way for development of magneto-seismology techniques that diagnose the magnetic field in structures where the magnetic field strength is traditionally difficult to directly measure. (Watch this space! We have upcoming research developing these magneto-seismology techniques in the works as I write this)
Interested in science and pubs? Come and enjoy an evening (or 3) of public science talks, demonstrations, and experiments in a pub in Sheffield next month!
Pint of Science is an international festival that brings together local scientists to talk to the public about their latest research in an informal setting. This year, I will be giving a talk as part of the Death of Stars: A Dark Matter session alongside fascinating talks given by Dr. Susan Cartwright and Dr. Callum Macdonald as well as some interactive science demonstrations.
In our latest paper, Robertus Erdélyi and I give a complete account of the transverse magneto-acoustic waves that can propagate along an asymmetric isolated magnetic slab.