Abstracts Physics

Mode Conversion in Partially Ionised Plasmas

by ABBAS RABOONIK

The precipitous rise in temperature in the Sun's corona has been perplexing the astrophysics community since the nineteenth century. How can the approximately 5000 degree solar surface abruptly give rise to million degrees farther up? Certainly not through radiation, convection, or conduction, as that would be a breach of the second law of thermodynamics. Motivated by this long-standing open question, in this thesis we use the theory of magnetohydrodynamics alongside computer simulations to investigate alternative pathways via which the immense kinetic energy created by convective motions in the photosphere can be transported to the corona and fuel the observed heat.