Bremen 2017 – scientific programme

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EP: Fachverband Extraterrestrische Physik

EP 7: Sonne und Heliosphäre II

EP 7.1: Invited Talk

Wednesday, March 15, 2017, 08:30–09:00, GW2 B2880

Observations of the Sun with the novel radio telescope LOFAR — •Gottfried Mann — Leibniz-Institut fuer Astrophysik Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

The Sun's activity appears not only in the well-known 11-year sunspot cycle but also in eruptive events like e. g. flares and coronal mass ejections, as well as radio bursts. All these events are accompanied with an enhanced radio emission. Therefore the study of the Sun's radio radiation provides important information on plasma processes associated with the Sun's activity.

LOFAR (Low Frequency Array) is a novel radio interferometer originally designed for the frequency range 10-240 MHz at ASTRON in the Netherlands. It presently consists of 50 stations distributed over central Europe.

Since the radio emission of active processes of the Sun appears in LOFAR's frequency range and because of LOFAR's imaging and spectroscopic capabilities, LOFAR is highly interesting for the solar physics community for observing flares, coronal mass ejections and related phenomena in the corona.

We report on first observations of the Sun with LOFAR and demonstrate that LOFAR is really able to work as a dynamic spectroscopic radio imager of the Sun. For instance, this allows for the first time to track fast moving electron beams in the corona and density measurements in the outer corona. That provides a better understanding of the nature of type III radio bursts.