Participation in the SWAVES/STEREO project

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Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) represent the most energetic kind of solar activity. They can influence our Earth s environment in different ways. On the one hand, they are able to drive a shock wave ahead of themselves. This shock wave is capable of accelerating particles to high energies. These particles can penetrate into our Earth s atmosphere leading to well-known auroral lights and disturbances of electronic equipment. On the other hand, CMEs are accompanied by a frozenin magnetic field. If a CME impinges the Earth s magnetosphere, it can cause magnetic storms perturbating e.g. the navigation of ships and aircrafts as well as wireless communications. These examples impressively demonstrate the importance of understanding CMEs and related phenomena.The basic aim of NASA s STEREO mission is to study the initiation of CMEs in the corona and their propagation through interplanetary space as well as their ability to accelerate particles. SWAVES is a package of basically two instruments, which allows to measure remotely the radio radiation between 16 MHz and 40 kHz and to detect in-situ plasma waves in the frequency range 10-40 kHz. Since the radio waves are regarded as being emitted near the local plasma frequency, remote radio observations allow for tracking the CME-driven shock from the Sun to 1 AU.The aim of this research project is to develop a software tool allowing a combined analysis of SWAVES data and data provided by other instruments onboard STEREO, as well as ground-based observations from the AIP s Observatory for Solar Radioastronomy at Tremsdorf, and data from other radio and optical observatories.The combined data analysis will provide a better understanding of the initiation and propagation of CMEs and related phenomena, like the production of solar energetic particles and the details of their acceleration mechanism.