Hardi PETER	Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS)
	Max-Planck-Str. 2
	37191 Katlenburg-Lindau	phone:	++49-(0)5556-979-413
	Germany	E-mail:	peter@mps.mpg.de

I am working at the Kiepenheuer-Institut für Sonnenphysik (KIS) in Freiburg, Germany, an institute of the Wissenschaftsgemeinschaft Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (WGL), aka "Blue List". The KIS conducts experimental and theoretical investigations of physical processes on and within the Sun. The main solar observing facilities are within the Observatorio del Teide in Izaña on Tenerife, Spain.

Generally speaking I am working in the field of solar and stellar astrophysics. Currently the main physical interest of my work is the dynamics and heating of the corona, the outer hot atmosphere of a cool star. In the case of our Sun the corona is visible to the naked eye during a solar eclipse. The problem of coronal heating, i.e. how an outer stellar atmosphere can have a temperature of many million degrees while the surface is 100 times cooler, is one of the longest standing and most interesting questions in astrophysics. It goes along with the problem of the acceleration of the solar wind, which can have large impact on everyday life, e.g. by causing problems in satellite communication or power supply during enhanced solar activity.

Under the entry unsolved problems in physics the free enzyclopedia Wikipedia lists the coronal heating problem as one of six items in Astronomy. The others are accretion disc jets, short duration gamma ray bursts, the Hipparcos Anomaly, the Pioneer anomaly and ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.

To investigate these problems we conduct observational as well as modeling studies in our coronal group. On the observational side we mostly investigate solar spectra obtained in the vacuum ultraviolet (from 17 nm to 160 nm) which originate in the transition region from the cool chromosphere to the corona as well as in the corona itself. The models stretch from one-dimensional loop models to full three-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD) models to describe the heating and dynamics of a whole active region.

	Publications		Teaching
	Presentations		Scientific CV
	Projects		Miscellaneous
	Cornal Group at KIS