Gang Li (UAH) - Particle acceleration and transport in the heliosphere

Gang Li is a Principle Research Scientist at CSPAR and Assistant Professor of Physics in the Physics Department of University of Alabama in Huntsville, with several NASA and NSF awards and grants.  He will be speaking about a fundamental topic in space physics -- the particle acceleration and transport in the heliosphere. 

Time.......... Tuesday, July 24th - 3:30-4:30 pm Location..... Room 415 Speaker......Gang Li (UAH, USA) Title............Particle acceleration and transport in the heliosphere

Energetic particles are everywhere in the heliosphere. These particles are either accelerated at the Sun (solar energetic particles) or accelerated at the Termination shock which is located some 100 AU from the Sun (the ACRs) or leaked in from interstellar medium (GCR). Understanding the acceleration and the transport of these particles are of central importance to space plasma physics.  In this talk, I will briefly discuss the various acceleration mechanisms and the transport of these energetic particles in the heliosphere. In particular, I will talk about some recent observersions of electron acceleration at merging magnetic islands and shock acceleration. Equally important is the transport of these particles in the inner heliosphere and outerheliosphere. These will be discussed along the framework of the focused transport equation and the Parker's transport equation.