Dr. Namir E. Kassim

Physical processes falling under the rubric of the Sun-Earth connection, particularly those that can be studied at radio wavelengths, including a strong interest in understanding the corona, CMEs, and the ionosphere/plasmasphere. A current thrust is the measurement of Faraday Rotation against polarized sources to constrain CME magnetic fields. A recent tool is our VLITE (http://vlite.nrao.edu) system on the Jansky Very Large Array. Our group has started a new program to identify recent geomagnetic storm events and evaluate corresponding VLITE observations during those events. VLITE can detect Total Electron Content (TEC) fluctuations much more accurately than GPS, making it a powerful tool with which to study ionospheric/plasmaspheric disturbances and turbulence associated with solar-induced geomagnetic storms. While our group is primarily radio astronomers, we work closely with scientists in the Solar Physics Branch within our sister Space Sciences Division at NRL.