Benjamin Lynch

Current research interests are: (1) investigating the physical processes leading up to and during eruptive flare and CME initiation in numerical MHD simulations, e.g. the gradual storage and rapid release of magnetic free energy, different initial magnetic field configurations and their subsequent evolution, and obtaining observational signatures from the simulations for comparison with remote-sensing observations; (2) magnetic reconnection in the corona that drives the dynamic transition between open- and closed-field regions with implications for the formation of the slow solar wind, “streamer blobs,” small-scale magnetic flux ropes, and the outflows from coronal pseudostreamers; (3) modeling the time evolution of ionic charge states within and surrounding the CME ejecta material for comparison with in-situ composition measurements, providing observational constraints on the plasma heating in coronal eruption models; and (4) the solar--stellar connection through MHD modeling of stellar flares and coronal transients as drivers of exoplanetary space weather.