Radio signatures of particle acceleration in the solar corona

The acceleration of charged particles to high energies is a common, though poorly understood, process in natural plasmas. In the astrophysical domain the heliosphere offers particularly favorable conditions for its study because of the proximity of the observer to the acceleration sites and the ensuing possibility to observe radiative signatures with spatial and temporal resolution, and to combine remote sensing observations with in situ measurements. Although candidate processes such as shock waves, magnetic reconnection and turbulence involve much smaller spatial and temporal scales than accessible to observations, multi-instrument observations reveal an increasing number of constraints.