Solar coronal heating through magnetic reconnection

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The overall aim of the project is to contribute to understanding how the solar flares release energy and accelerate charged particles, by studying the nature of magnetic energy release during magnetic flux tube reconnection. The focus will be on configurations which release stored magnetic energy trhough merger of twisted magnetic flux ropes. Initial work will focus on modelling test partices in 2D forced reconnection, extending previous work to include island (flux rope) merger. In order to achieve this, the evolution of the magnetic field during forced magnetic reconnection events in the corona will be investigated using magnetohydrodynamic simulations. These results will be used in test-particle simulations using the CGA code to determine the mechanisms by which some particle populations in the solar corona are accelerated to high energies. Building on previous work in unstable twisted coronal loops, more complex magnetic field configurations will then be considered, such as multi-thread and multi-loop interactions. There is also scope to extend the test-particle kinetic model to more self consistent kinetic models, as well as looking at possible applications of the modelling to fusion plasmas.