Alec MacKinnon
In astrophysics, particularly solar flares; for this purpose I am a member
of the
Astronomy and Astrophysics Group. Here's my
list of publications, courtesy of the
NASA ADS.
General reading for humans:
Particular items:
- RHESSI Science nuggets: Solar Hard X-ray Halo;
Solar radiation belts;
inverse Compton X-rays
- Solar flares sometimes produce bursts of gamma-rays, radiation like X-rays but even more penetrating.
These gamma-rays tell us something about energetic ions produced at the Sun in the flare - but what, exactly? Technical details in recent
publications with Mark Toner.
With Gerard Trottet and Nicole Vilmer of DASOP,
Observatoire de Paris - Meudon) I've also studied the most energetic gamma-rays produced by flares
(a couple of papers).
- Big flares also produce energetic neutrons that can be detected in space, another source of information on energetic
ions. Because free neutrons are unstable, a detector inside the orbit of Mercury will detect tens to hundreds of thousands
more neutrons than detectors near Earth (because we grab the neutrons before they can decay).
With Jim Ryan and colleagues in the University
of New Hampshire, I've been involved in studies of solar neutrons detected with the COMPTEL
instrument on the Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory Satellite
(paper). I'm now
working with them, and with Erwin Flueckiger and Benoit Pirard in Bern University's Physikalisches Institut, on techniques for analysing detections of neutrons with new, innovative neutron detectors, hopefully to be
flown on missions that will go close to the Sun. Neutrons near the Sun may also be of
interest in other ways.
- Self-organised energy release in solar flares (with
Keith Macpherson): technical articles;
words for normal human beings; vugraphs (PDF)
of our presentation to the RAS
Discussion Meeting, 8 December 2000.
- Particle acceleration in collisionless magnetic reconnection
(with Panagiota Petkaki, and now Christina Burge).
- most recently I've had fun working with Eduard Kontar on flare X-rays as observed by RHESSI
(papers)
Adult and Continuing Education home page.
Alec MacKinnon; 21 June 2006
