The Hydrodynamics of Coronal Heating
This project models solar flare-like events to understand how the corona heats up, using observations from solar telescopes to link energy transport and plasma changes.
This grant is no longer accepting proposals
NRC Research Associateship Programs has archived this opportunity.
Funder: NRC Research Associateship Programs
Due Dates: May 1, 2025
Funding Amounts: $99,200 stipend plus $3,000 travel allowance; relocation and health insurance benefits available.
Summary: Postdoctoral fellowship for hydrodynamic modeling of solar flare-like events to investigate coronal heating using multi-observatory data.
Key Information: Open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents; tenure at Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, DC; requires contacting Research Adviser prior to applying.
Description
This fellowship opportunity at the Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) focuses on advancing the understanding of how the solar corona is heated to extremely high temperatures—a fundamental problem in solar physics. The program addresses the challenge that current physical models rely on impulsive energy release on very small spatial and temporal scales (nanoflares), which are difficult to resolve observationally.
The research involves applying hydrodynamic modeling to somewhat larger, flare-like brightenings observed by the latest generation of solar observatories. The goal is to simulate these events to explore the relationship between energy transport signatures—such as hard X-ray emissions and transition region velocities observed with RHESSI and IRIS—and the evolution of coronal plasma observed with Hinode and SDO. These simulations will be scaled to both smaller and larger events to study coronal heating mechanisms and energy release from magnetic reconnection during large solar flares.
Key scientific areas include solar physics, numerical modeling, solar atmosphere dynamics, solar flares, ultraviolet and X-ray astronomy.
