Introduction to Solar Radio Astronomy and Radio Physics / Edition 1

by A. Krïger

Overview

1. 1. Short History of Solar Radio Astronomy Since its birth in the forties of our century, solar radio astronomy has grown into an extensive scientific branch comprising a number of quite different topics covering technical sciences, astrophysics, plasma physics, solar-terrestrial physics, and other disciplines. Historically, the story of radio astronomy goes back to the times of James Clerk Maxwell, whose well known phenomenological electromagnetic field equations have become the basis of present-time radio physics. As a direct consequence of these equations, Maxwell was able to prognosticate the existence of radio waves which fifteen years later were experimentally detected by the famous work of Heinrich Hertz (1887/88). However, all attempts to detect radio waves from cosmic objects failed until 1932, which was mainly due to the early stage of development of receiving techniques and the as yet missing knowledge of the existence of a screening ionosphere (which was detected in 1925). Therefore, famous inventors like Thomas Edison and A. E. Kennelly, as well as Sir Oliver Lodge, were unsuccessful in receiving any radio emission from the Sun or other extraterrestrial sources. Another hindering point was that nobody could a priori expect that solar radio emission should have something to do with solar activity so that unfortunately by chance some experiments were carried out just at periods of low solar activity. This was also why Karl Guthe Jansky at the birth of radio astronomy detected galactic radio waves but no emission from the Sun.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789027709974
Publisher:	Springer Netherlands
Publication date:	10/31/1979
Series:	Geophysics and Astrophysics Monographs , #16
Edition description:	Softcover reprint of the original 1st ed. 1979
Pages:	332
Product dimensions:	8.27(w) x 11.69(h) x 0.03(d)

Table of Contents

I Introduction.- 1.1. Short History of Solar Radio Astronomy.- 1.2. General Views of the Sun.- 1.3. Some Astronomical Fundamentals.- II Instrumental Background.- 2.1. Fundamentals of Radio Observations.- 2.2. Radio Telescope Aerials.- 2.3. Radio Astronomy Receivers.- 2.4. Polarization Measurements.- 2.5. Absolute Calibration Experiments.- 2.6. Spectrography.- 2.7 Interferometry and Heliography.- 2.8. Aperture-Synthesis Methods.- III Phenomenology of Solar Radio Emission.- 3.1. The ‘Quiet’ Sun.- 3.2. The Slowly Varying Component.- 3.3. Solar Continuum Bursts (a): Microwave Bursts.- 3.4. Fast-Drift Bursts.- 3.5. Slow-Drift Bursts.- 3.6. Continuum Bursts (b): The Type IV Burst Complex.- 3.7. Noise Storms.- 3.8. Solar Radio Pulsations.- IV Theory of Solar Radio Emission.- 4.1. Basic Properties of the Solar Atmosphere as a Plasma Medium.- 4.2. Fundamentals of the Emission and Propagation of Radio Waves.- 4.3. Single-Particle Approximation: An Account of Direct Radio Emission Mechanisms.- 4.4. Cold-Plasma Approximation: Some Aspects of Synchrotron Radiation and Cerenkov Radiation.- 4.5. Warm-Plasma Effects: Gyroresonance Absorption and Plasma Waves.- 4.6. Wave-Mode Transformations: Wave-Particle and Wave-Wave Interactions.- 4.7. Instabilities and Coherent Emission.- V Integration of Radio Astronomy into Solar and Solar-Terrestrial Physics.- 5.1. Estimation of Solar Plasma Parameters.- 5.2. The Flare Phenomenon.- 5.3. Particle Acceleration and Energy Release.- 5.4. Particle Radiation and Radio Waves.- 5.5. Shock Waves and Magnetospheric Disturbances.- 5.6. Burst Origin and Flare Theories.- 5.7. Summary and Prospects.- Literature.- List of Symbols.