Solar and Stellar Flares

This volume is a collection of research articles on the subject of solar flares and flares on other cool stars, which are currently extensively studied using new ground- and space-based instruments, together with highly sophisticated numerical simulations. The collection memorializes the work of a pioneer in the study of solar physics, Professor Zdenek Švestka (1925 Prague – 2013 Bunschoten), a leading expert in the field of solar flares and the co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of the journal Solar Physics. The book contains many contributions to the conference “Solar and Stellar Flares: Observations, simulations and synergies”, held in Prague during 23 – 27 June 2014, organised in honor and memory of Professor Švestka.


Originally published as Topical Issue of Solar Physics, Vol. 290, Issue 12, 2015.

• Sun-Earth connections
• Space weather
• Stellar physics
• Stellar flares
• Solar physics-solar flares
• Work of Zdenek Svestka
• Czech astronomers
• Nusl Prize winners
• Ground based solar/stellar observing
• Space-based solar/stellar observing

• School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow School of Physics and Astronomy, Glasgow, United Kingdom

  Lyndsay Fletcher

• Academy of Sciences, Astronomical Institute Academy of Sciences, Ondrejov, Czech Republic

  Petr Heinzel

Prof. Petr Heinzel is leading scientist at the Czech Academy of Sciences and full professor at Charles University in Prague. He was the director of the Astronomical Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences. His research interest is solar physics and astrophysics in general, with focus on non-equilibrium spectroscopy of solar and stellar atmospheres. He was collaborating with Prof. Zdenek Svestka who co-founded the Springers’s journal Solar Physics (P. Heinzel is member of the editorial board of this journal). The edited Topical Issue of this journal, reprinted in book form, is dedicated to memory of Z. Svestka (see Preface by the Guest Editors). Prof. Heinzel has received several awards from the Academy of Sciences, Czech Astronomical Society and Wroclaw University in Poland.

Prof. Lyndsay Fletcher is full professor at the University of Glasgow, UK. Her main interest is the solar physics and physics of solar and stellar flares, of which sheis an internationally highly recognized expert. Currently she leads the European project FP7 called F-CHROMA, devoted to solar flare research. Together with P. Heinzel, she co-organized an international conference on solar and stellar flares dedicated to Prof. Svestka and the edited Topical Issue of Solar Physics resulted from this meeting.

Policies and ethics