Solar radio bursts: simulations, observations & laboratory experiments – SRB-SOLE

Solar radio bursts, which are among the most intense emissions in the Solar System, are produced by electron beams accelerated in the solar corona. They excite electrostatic wave turbulence which emits in turn electromagnetic (EM) waves at the electron plasma frequency and its harmonics, via a complex chain of successive mechanisms of interaction between waves, beams and solar plasmas. Many questions on the generation and propagation processes of EM emissions remain open. Nowadays, new generation ground-based radio telescopes, such as LOFAR and NenuFAR, observe the Sun with unprecedented spectral and temporal resolutions whereas the recent solar missions Solar Orbiter and Parker Solar Probe explore the solar atmosphere at minimal distances from the Sun never reached before. Moreover, laser-based experiments could recently recreate in a controlled environment conditions and processes relevant to solar radio bursts. Circumstances are gathered for a project whose objectives focus on the identification and characterization of the physical processes responsible for EM waves’ generation in magnetized, turbulent and randomly inhomogeneous plasmas. An interdisciplinary team composed of solar radio astronomers, plasma theoreticians, HPC modelers and laser-plasma interaction experimentalists proposes to reach its objectives through complementary approaches and tools, using solar observations by the radio telescope NenuFAR, high-performance numerical simulations and laser-plasma experiments in conditions pertinent for solar radio bursts. The project is timely since the next solar maximum is foreseen for 2024. Results will benefit to stellar astrophysics, fundamental plasma physics, laser-plasma interaction - with applications to inertial fusion -, and space meteorology.