Ultraviolet and X-Ray Spectroscopy of the Solar Atmosphere

The solar atmosphere, above the Sun's surface layers, reaches mega-kelvin temperatures and high levels of dynamic activity through processes involving a pervading magnetic field. This book explores one of the principal means of understanding the solar atmosphere, its ultraviolet and soft X-ray emission. The ultraviolet and X-ray spectra of the Sun's atmosphere provide valuable information about its nature - the heat and density of its various parts, its dynamics, and chemical composition. The principles governing spectral line and continuous emission, and how spectral studies lead to deductions about physical properties, are described, together with spacecraft instrumentation from Skylab, SolarMax, Yohkoh, SOHO, TRACE, and Hinode. With introductions to atomic physics and diagnostic techniques used by solar spectroscopists, a list of emission lines in ultraviolet and soft X-ray regions, and a glossary of terms, this is an ideal reference for graduate students and researchers in astrophysics and solar physics.

Professor Kenneth Phillips is Scientific Associate at the Natural History Museum in South Kensington, London, and specialises in solar physics and X-ray and ultraviolet spectroscopy. He is author of Guide to the Sun (1992) and has authored over 300 research papers. In 2010, he was awarded the Copernicus Medal of the Polish Academy of Sciences and in 2009, the Gold Medal of the University of Wroclaw, Poland, for collaborative projects with the solar group there. From 2002 to 2005, he held a National Research Council Senior Research Associateship at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center and he worked for twenty-five years in the Space Science Department of the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, Oxfordshire. He has held honorary or visiting professorships at Queen's University, Belfast and University College London.