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.