Sven Wedemeyer
ORCID 0000-0002-5006-7540
Primary research fields
Solar and stellar physics with additional interests in extra-solar planets. Most of my individual projects combine realistic numerical simulations and space-borne and ground-based observations.
Current main positions and functions
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Associate Professor (permanent staff) and among the PIs of the Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics (RoCS, since 2017), a centre of excellence funded by the Research Council of Norway
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PI of the EMISSA project (funded by the Research Council of Norway, 2019-2023)
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PI of the ESO-funded ALMA Development Study High-Cadence Imaging of the Sun (since 2018)
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Vice president and board member of the European Solar Physics Division (ESPD) of the European Physical Society (EPS, since 2021)
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Member of the European Scientific Advisory Committee (ESAC) for ALMA (ESO, since 2017)
- Norwegian representative at the Observing Programme Committee (OPC) of the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT)
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Initiator and co-ordinator of the SSALMON research network with more than 80 researchers (since 2014)
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External staff member of the ALMA Regional Center at Ondrejoy, Czech Republic
Current major research activities
Solar/Stellar Science with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array
- As a legacy of the ERC-funded SolarALMA project, a combination of simulations and ALMA observations are used for detailed studies of the small-scale structure, dynamics and heating of the solar chromosphere.
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The ESO-funded ALMA Development Study aims at improving and developing solar observing modes.
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The EMISSA project (funded by the Research Council of Norway) addresses solar and stellar activity as observed with ALMA, supported by numerical simulation.
- International team for developing solar observing modes for ALMA, as combination of the previous project "Advanced Solar Observing Techniques" within the North American Study Plan for Development Upgrades of the ALMA (PI: T. Bastian, NRAO, USA) and the project "Solar Research with ALMA" carried out at the Czech node of the European ALMA Regional Center (EU ARC at Ondrejov, Czech Republic) in the frame of the ESO program "Enhancement of ALMA Capabilities/EoC" (PI: R. Brajsa, Hvar Observatory, Croatia).
- SSALMON - The Solar Simulations for the Atacama Large Millimeter Observatory Network (since 2014).
- Member of the AtLAST consortium / the design study AtLAST - The Atacama Large Aperture Submm Telescope
Small-scale dynamics and energy balance of the solar atmosphere
- International Team The nature and physics of vortex flows in solar plasmas (funded by the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) Bern, Switzerland, since 2018).
Stellar physics
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ChETEC-INFRA (Chemical Elements as Tracers of the Evolution of the Cosmos - Infrastructures for Nuclear Astrophysics), JRA3-WP5 „Astronuclear Abundances 2040“, associate partner.
Extrasolar planets and their host stars
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Member of KOINet - Observations of extrasolar planets (Kepler Objects of Interest), amongst others with the Nordic Optical Telescope (since 2014)
- Extreme Precision Radial Velocity group (EPRV, NASA/NSF, since 2019)
- NASA’s EXOPAG SAG 21 on “The Effect of Stellar Contamination on Space-based Transmission Spectroscopy” (since 2020)
- ARIEL (Atmospheric Remote-sensing Infrared Exoplanet Large-survey, ESA exoplanet detection mission), Consortium Supporting Member (since 2021)
Previous research
After finishing my PhD studies at the University of Kiel, Germany, which includes a stay at the University of Glasgow, UK, I was a post-doctoral research fellow at the Kiepenheuer Institute in Freiburg i.Br., Germany (2003-06). After receiving a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship, I started working at the Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Oslo. During the recent years, I have been the PI of the MDWARF project and the VORTEX project, both funded by the Research Council of Norway.
Recent research highlights include the discovery and explanation of so-called magnetic tornadoes on the Sun, featured on the front page of Nature in 2012, and the ongoing development of methods for observing the Sun with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, an application with potentially high impact for our understanding of the outer layers of our Sun and other stars.
Previous major research activities (in part ongoing)
- The ERC-funded SolarALMA project ran from 2016 to 2021 and aimed at utilizing ALMA for detailed studies of the solar chromosphere with particular focus on the coronal heating problem.
- "Vortex flows and magnetic tornadoes on the Sun and cool stars"
Funded by the Research Council of Norway in the highly competitive FRIPRO/FRINATEK program for the period 2013-2017.
Click here for the official ITA project page. - "Magnetic Activity of the Atmospheres of M-type Dwarf Stars"
Funded by the Research Council of Norway in the Space Science for the period 2012-2014. Further work based on the project results still ongoing.
Click here for the official ITA project page. - "Magnetic Activity of M-type Dwarf Stars and the Influence on Habitable Extra-solar Planets"
International Team funded by the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) in Bern, Switzerland (since 2012).
Click here for the official team home page at ISSI, Bern.
