Dear all,
The Department of Physics Cordially Invites you to the Following Colloquium:
Title: Planetary Statistics for Solar Flares
Speaker: Helen Petrakou, Radio Cosmology Laboratory, Universiti Malaya
Date: Friday May 12th 3:00 - 4:00 pm
Venue: BSFB, Department of Physics
Abstract:
Solar flares are an intense phenomenon that is not only spectacular but also connected to our technological civilization, as they are a main trigger of geomagnetic storms. However, due to emitting in the X-ray spectrum, continuous monitoring of solar flares has been possible only since the late ’70s, in contrast to sunspots which have been recorded for centuries. For this reason, flares are often overlooked in analyses of long-term solar activity such as studies of the solar cycle. But we are probably at an era where enough data have been gathered to start extracting insights about the Sun’s behaviour from the statistical analysis of solar flares.
Indeed, strong indications will be presented about the influence of planetary positions on the timing of solar flares, as seen from the data of the last forty-five years. The relation of solar activity to the position of planets becomes more evident for the combined positions of Jupiter and Saturn, which seem to regulate the solar cycles, and which led to the development of a model for the evolution of the cycles. Less evident but still strong appears the role of the terrestrial planets; importantly, their influence seems to extend to short timescales of flaring activity. Further study of the aspects of this influence could open up a new understanding of solar and stellar processes.
About the Speaker:
Helen Petrakou obtained her PhD in Athens, Greece, in experimental physics of elementary particles. She has worked at experiments at the Large Hadron Collider and at “tabletop” experiments. Her work has involved data analysis and instrumentation, with a focus on physics beyond the Standard Model, such as fourth-generation quarks and axions, while more recently she switched to solar physics and space weather studies. She is a senior lecturer at the Physics Department since the beginning of 2023.
Thanks.
