Energy Conversion and Particle Acceleration in the Solar Corona

The conversion of energy generated in the Sun¿s interior creates its hot corona and a wealth of dynamical phenomena such as ?ares, mass ejections and tr- sientnonthermalpopulationsofchargedparticles. Theseprocessesareofgeneral interest in astrophysics. In the case of the Sun they can be probed by a unique combination of imaging, spectrographic and in situ measurements. Radio obs- vations provide important diagnostics, and many instruments are operated by small research groups in Europe. The stimulation of joint investigations using radio diagnostics is a major role of CESRA, the Community of European Solar Radio Astronomers. This volume is based on the CESRA Workshop and Eu- conference Energy Conversion and Particle Acceleration in the Solar Corona held 2¿6 July 2001, at Schloss Ringberg near Tegernsee (Germany). It aims to address a broader community of astrophyscists, including graduate students and researchers who want to gain an insight into this subject. The workshop was organised by a scienti?c committee composed of C. Al- sandrakis (Greece), F. Chiuderi-Drago and G. Einaudi (Italy), M. Karlicky ¿ (Czech Republic), K. -L. Klein (France), J. Kuijpers (The Netherlands; president of the joint Solar Physics Section of the European Physical Society and the - ropean Astronomical Society), and G. Mann and R. Treumann (Germany). The local organisers were R. Treumann and A. Czaykowska (Max Planck Institut fur ¿ Extraterrestische Physik, Munich), assisted by the Copernicus Gesellschaft.