The Elusive Sources of Solar Energetic Particles

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Our Sun is vital for our existence; it is a source of immense power that allows life to exist and thrive. The Sun's eruptive activity, which is driven by magnetic fields, causes hazardous space weather conditions at Earth. Solar eruptions can accelerate energetic particles consisting of electrons, protons and ions that can cause significant damage to satellite electronics and pose a severe radiation risk for crewed spaceflight. Space weather directly impacts our everyday lives due to our ever-growing levels of space exploration, space tourism and dependence on modern technology. The UK Met Office now provides space weather forecasts with space weather appearing on the UK's National Risk Register.Investigating the origin and acceleration of solar energetic particles remains at the forefront of solar heliospheric research and it is the focus of the recently launched Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe missions. It is an exciting time to work on this project due to the launch of new space missions, the existence of decade-long Solar Dynamics Observatory datasets covering the entire previous solar cycle, the development of new plasma composition techniques, and the increased activity during the new solar cycle. During this fellowship, I will combine magnetic field observations, magnetic models and plasma measurements in space with a novel composition analysis technique to understand the origin of solar energetic particles. I will use magnetic field parameters and eruption characteristics along with enhancements in plasma composition to identify source regions of solar energetic particles in advance as required by space weather forecasters.