Linking Small-scale Solar Wind Properties with Large-scale Coronal Source Regions through Joint Parker Solar Probe–Metis/Solar Orbiter Observations

Abstract The solar wind measured in situ by Parker Solar Probe in the very inner heliosphere is studied in combination with the remote-sensing observation of the coronal source region provided by the METIS coronagraph aboard Solar Orbiter. The coronal outflows observed near the ecliptic by Metis on 2021 January 17 at 16:30 UT, between 3.5 and 6.3 R ⊙ above the eastern solar limb, can be associated with the streams sampled by PSP at 0.11 and 0.26 au from the Sun, in two time intervals almost 5 days apart. The two plasma flows come from two distinct source regions, characterized by different magnetic field polarity and intensity at the coronal base. It follows that both the global and local p…

Hydrodynamic simulations of the shock-cloud interaction in the Vela supernova remnant

XMM-Newton observations of the young open cluster Blanco 1. II. X-ray time variability and flares.

We study the X-ray variability of the young open cluster Blanco 1 observed with the EPIC camera on board the XMM-Newton X-ray observatory. The time coverage of EPIC observations has allowed us to address short time scale (hours) variability, while the comparison with previous ROSAT observations has allowed us to investigate the variability on time scale of six years. On the time scale of hours, dM stars of the cluster are more variable than solar-mass stars. The main features of X-ray light curves in dM stars appear to be essentially flare-like events with a typical duration of the order of a few ks, while dF-dG stars show smooth variations. Two intense flares were observed in the ZS76 clus…

On the importance of background subtraction in the analysis of coronal loops observed with TRACE

In the framework of TRACE coronal observations, we compare the analysis and diagnostics of a loop after subtracting the background with two different and independent methods. The dataset includes sequences of images in the 171 A, 195 A filter bands of TRACE. One background subtraction method consists in taking as background values those obtained from interpolation between concentric strips around the analyzed loop. The other method is a pixel-to-pixel subtraction of the final image when the loop had completely faded out, already used by Reale & Ciaravella 2006. We compare the emission distributions along the loop obtained with the two methods and find that they are considerably differen…

Effects of Flaring Activity on Dynamics of Accretion Disks in YSOs

We investigate the effects of strong flares on the accretion phenomena in YSOs. Among all classical assumptions, the model accounts magnetic-field oriented thermal conduction. We study the global dynamics of the system for two positions of the heating release triggering the flare.

SOLAR DYNAMICS OBSERVATORY DISCOVERS THIN HIGH TEMPERATURE STRANDS IN CORONAL ACTIVE REGIONS

One scenario proposed to explain the million degrees solar corona is a finely-stranded corona where each strand is heated by a rapid pulse. However, such fine structure has neither been resolved through direct imaging observations nor conclusively shown through indirect observations of extended superhot plasma. Recently it has been shown that the observed difference in appearance of cool and warm coronal loops (~1 MK, ~2-3 MK, respectively) -- warm loops appearing "fuzzier" than cool loops -- can be explained by models of loops composed of subarcsecond strands, which are impulsively heated up to ~10 MK. That work predicts that images of hot coronal loops (>~6 MK) should again show fine s…

Reconstruction of the Parker spiral with the Reverse in situ data and MHD APproach - RIMAP

The reconstruction of plasma parameters in the interplanetary medium is very important to understand the interplanetary propagation of solar eruptions and for Space Weather application purposes. Because only a few spacecraft are measuring in situ these parameters, reconstructions are currently performed by running complex numerical Magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulations starting from remote sensing observations of the Sun. Current models apply full 3D MHD simulations of the corona or extrapolations of photospheric magnetic fields combined with semi-empirical relationships to derive the plasma parameters on a sphere centered on the Sun (inner boundary). The plasma is then propagated in the i…

The role of radiative losses in the late evolution of pulse-heated coronal loops/strands

Radiative losses from optically thin plasma are an important ingredient for modeling plasma confined in the solar corona. Spectral models are continuously updated to include the emission from more spectral lines, with significant effects on radiative losses, especially around 1 MK. We investigate the effect of changing the radiative losses temperature dependence due to upgrading of spectral codes on predictions obtained from modeling plasma confined in the solar corona. The hydrodynamic simulation of a pulse-heated loop strand is revisited comparing results using an old and a recent radiative losses function. We find significant changes in the plasma evolution during the late phases of plas…

The Heating of the Solar Corona

The solar corona, the outer atmosphere of the Sun, is heated to millions of Kelvin. This is several orders of magnitude hotter than the photosphere, the optical surface of the Sun, below, and a mystery that has baffled scientists for centuries. The answer to the question of how the solar corona is heated lies in the crucial magnetic connection through the atmosphere of the Sun. The magnetic field that threads the corona extends below the solar photosphere, where convective motions drag the magnetic field footpoints, tangling and twisting them. The chromosphere is the atmospheric layer above the photosphere, and the magnetic field provides an important connection between these layers. The ex…

The EM(T) of stellar coronae

Studying the solar corona, due to its vicinity, is the starting point to understand stellar activity. The emission measure distribution vs temperature, EM(T), is a useful tool to study coronal plasmas, in fact it allows: to investigate the energy balance of coronal plasmas, to easily compare different stars, and also to compare the solar corona to that of other active stars irrespective of the very different observing techniques. The EM(T) of the solar corona differs significantly, in terms of average plasma temperatures, peak temperatures, and total emission measure, with respect to that of active stars. In this work it is discussed how the evaluation of the EM(T) of the solar corona, and …

Emission Measure Distribution in Loops Impulsively Heated at the Footpoints

This work is prompted by the evidence of sharply peaked emission measure distributions in active stars, and by the claims of isothermal loops in solar coronal observations, at variance with the predictions of hydrostatic loop models with constant cross-section and uniform heating. We address the problem with loops heated at the foot-points. Since steady heating does not allow static loop models solutions, we explore whether pulse-heated loops can exist and appear as steady loops, on a time average. We simulate pulse-heated loops, using the Palermo-Harvard 1-D hydrodynamic code, for different initial conditions corresponding to typical coronal temperatures of stars ranging from intermediate …

SphinX soft X-ray spectrophotometer: Science objectives, design and performance

The goals and construction details of a new design Polish-led X-ray spectrophotometer are described. The instrument is aimed to observe emission from entire solar corona and is placed as a separate block within the Russian TESIS X- and EUV complex aboard the CORONAS-PHOTON solar orbiting observatory. SphinX uses silicon PIN diode detectors for high time resolution measurements of the solar spectra in the range 0.8–15 keV. Its spectral resolution allows for discerning more than hundred separate energy bands in this range. The instrument dynamic range extends two orders of magnitude below and above these representative for GOES. The relative and absolute accuracy of spectral measurements is e…

Coronal loop hydrodynamics. The solar flare observedon November 12 1980 revisited: the UV line emission

We revisit a well-studied solar flare whose X-ray emission originating from a simple loop structure was observed by most of the instruments on board SMM on November 12 1980. The X-ray emission of this flare, as observed with the XRP, was successfully modeled previously. Here we include a detailed modeling of the transition region and we compare the hydrodynamic results with the UVSP observations in two EUV lines, measured in areas smaller than the XRP rasters, covering only some portions of the flaring loop (the top and the foot-points). The single loop hydrodynamic model, which fits well the evolution of coronal lines (those observed with the XRP and the \FeXXI 1354.1 \AA line observed wit…

Viewing the Sun as an X-ray star

The Sun is the late-type star we can study with the highest level of detail. In the interpretation of stellar data, therefore, it is often assumed that the physical processes of the coronae of late-type stars are similar to those of the solar corona, i.e. the "solar-stellar analogy". In order to investigate the validity of this assumption, we have started a program to study systematically the Sun as an X-ray star. Our program aims to explore how far the solar model can be applied to other stars. In this paper we review the results obtained from these studies and, in particular, we discuss the variability of a star identical to the Sun during its cycle, the contribution of different coronal …

The early B-type star Rho Oph A is an X-ray lighthouse

We present the results of a 140 ks XMM-Newton observation of the B2 star $\rho$ Ophiuchi A. The star has exhibited strong X-ray variability: a cusp-shaped increase of rate, similar to that which we partially observed in 2013, and a bright flare. These events are separated in time by about 104 ks, which likely corresponds to the rotational period of the star (1.2 days). Time resolved spectroscopy of the X-ray spectra shows that the first event is caused by an increase of the plasma emission measure, while the second increase of rate is a major flare with temperatures in excess of 60 MK ($kT\sim5$ keV). From the analysis of its rise, we infer a magnetic field of $\ge300$ G and a size of the f…

Dynamic Temperature Structure of the Corona

The solar corona is heated to million degrees and information about the temperature structure is a key to understand the heating mechanisms. Although it is not easy to measure, the temperature looks to be remarkably steady in the solar corona and in active regions outside of transient events, like flares. On the other hand, there is strong evidence of multi-thermal structures, out of equilibrium for most of the time. Is there a way to obtain a coherent scenario? The secret might be in the fine structuring of the corona, and SDO is providing new and important information on this issue.

3D MHD MODELING of TWISTED CORONAL LOOPS

We perform MHD modeling of a single bright coronal loop to include the interaction with a non-uniform magnetic field. The field is stressed by random footpoint rotation in the central region and its energy is dissipated into heating by growing currents through anomalous magnetic diffusivity that switches on in the corona above a current density threshold. We model an entire single magnetic flux tube, in the solar atmosphere extending from the high-beta chromosphere to the low-beta corona through the steep transition region. The magnetic field expands from the chromosphere to the corona. The maximum resolution is ~30 km. We obtain an overall evolution typical of loop models and realistic loo…

Hydrodynamic modeling of ejecta shrapnels in the Vela SNR

Radiative accretion shocks along nonuniform stellar magnetic fields in classical T Tauri stars

(abridged) AIMS. We investigate the dynamics and stability of post-shock plasma streaming along nonuniform stellar magnetic fields at the impact region of accretion columns. We study how the magnetic field configuration and strength determine the structure, geometry, and location of the shock-heated plasma. METHODS. We model the impact of an accretion stream onto the chromosphere of a CTTS by 2D axisymmetric magnetohydrodynamic simulations. Our model takes into account the gravity, the radiative cooling, and the magnetic-field-oriented thermal conduction. RESULTS. The structure, stability, and location of the shocked plasma strongly depend on the configuration and strength of the magnetic f…

Plasma sloshing in pulse-heated solar and stellar coronal loops

There is evidence that coronal heating is highly intermittent, and flares are the high energy extreme. The properties of the heat pulses are difficult to constrain. Here hydrodynamic loop modeling shows that several large amplitude oscillations (~ 20% in density) are triggered in flare light curves if the duration of the heat pulse is shorter that the sound crossing time of the flaring loop. The reason is that the plasma has not enough time to reach pressure equilibrium during the heating and traveling pressure fronts develop. The period is a few minutes for typical solar coronal loops, dictated by the sound crossing time in the decay phase. The long period and large amplitude make these os…

Are Coronae of Late‐Type Stars Made of Solar‐like Structures? The X‐Ray Surface Flux versus Hardness Ratio Diagram and the Pressure‐Temperature Correlation

This work is dedicated to the solar-stellar connection, i.e., the close similarity of the Sun and late-type stars; in particular, this work shows that stellar coronae can be composed of X-ray-emitting structures similar to those present in the solar corona. To this end we use a large set of ROSAT PSPC observations of late-type stars of all spectral types and activity levels and a large set of solar X-ray data collected with Yohkoh SXT. Solar data have been analyzed and formatted to study the Sun as an X-ray star; they include observations of the solar corona at various phases of the solar cycle and data on various kinds of X-ray coronal structures, from flares to the background corona, i.e.…

Post-flare evolution of AR 10923 with Hinode/XRT

Flares are dynamic events which involve rapid changes in coronal magnetic topology end energy release. Even if they may be localized phenomena, the magnetic disturbance at their origin may propagate and be effective in a larger part of the active region. We investigate the temporal evolution of a flaring active region with respect to the loops morphology, the temperature, and emission measure distributions. We consider $Hinode/XRT$ data of a the 2006 November 12th C1.1 flare. We inspect the evolution of the morphology of the flaring region also with the aid of TRACE data. XRT filter ratios are used to derive temperature and emission measure maps and evolution. The analyzed flare includes se…

Statistical Signatures of Nanoflare Activity. I. Monte Carlo Simulations and Parameter-space Exploration

Small-scale magnetic reconnection processes, in the form of nanoflares, have become increasingly hypothesized as important mechanisms for the heating of the solar atmosphere, for driving propagating disturbances along magnetic field lines in the Sun's corona, and for instigating rapid jet-like bursts in the chromosphere. Unfortunately, the relatively weak signatures associated with nanoflares places them below the sensitivities of current observational instrumentation. Here, we employ Monte Carlo techniques to synthesize realistic nanoflare intensity time series from a dense grid of power-law indices and decay timescales. Employing statistical techniques, which examine the modeled intensity…

The Corona of the Sun as a Star

We study the physics of the solar corona as a whole, i.e. of the Sun as a Star, in order to understand its global features and to provide a template for stellar coronae. In this process we strive to understand the features of various structures which compose the solar corona. This process in not straightforward given the problems of observing the Sun as a whole: e.g., no recent X‐ray wide‐band, medium‐resolution, spectrum of the Sun is avaible, unlike stars and no X‐ray spectral monitoring of the Sun at various activity phases is available. The presentation will discuss our work in this field; we present the method we have devised, based on Yohkoh/SXT data, to derive the Differential Emissi…

Analysis of a multi-wavelength time-resolved observation of a coronal loop

Several items on the diagnostics and interpretation of coronal loop observations are under debate. In this work, we analyze a well-defined loop system detected in a time-resolved observation in several spectral bands. The dataset includes simultaneous images in the TRACE 171 A, 195 A and 284 A bands, and Yohkoh/SXT, and two rasters taken with SoHO/CDS in twelve relevant lines. The loop is initially best visible in the TRACE 195 A filter band, and later in the 171 A filter band, with correspondence with the CDS raster images at log T \~ 6.0-6.1. We have taken as pixel-by-pixel background the latest TRACE, Yohkoh and CDS images where the loop has faded out. We examine the loop morphology evol…

Hydrodynamic Modeling of Accretion Shock on CTTSs

High resolution (R ~ 600) X-ray observations of some classical T Tauri stars (CTTSs) (TW Hya, BP Tau, V4046 Sgr, MP Mus and RU Lupi) have shown the presence of X-ray plasma at T ~ 2–3 × 106 K and denser than n e ~ 1011 cm-3 [1, 2, 3, 4, 5], which suggests an origin different from the coronal one (n e ~ 1010 cm_3). Stationary models demonstrated that X-ray emission from CTTSs could also be produced by the accreting material [6]. We address this issue with the aid of a time-dependent hydrodynamic numerical model describing the impact of an accretion stream onto the chromosphere of a CTTS (see [7] for more details). Our simulations include the effects of gravity, radiative losses from opticall…

Widespread Nanoflare Variability Detected with Hinode/X-Ray Telescope in a Solar Active Region

It is generally agreed that small impulsive energy bursts called nanoflares are responsible for at least some of the Sun's hot corona, but whether they are the explanation for most of the multimillion-degree plasma has been a matter of ongoing debate. We present here evidence that nanoflares are widespread in an active region observed by the X-Ray Telescope on board the Hinode mission. The distributions of intensity fluctuations have small but important asymmetries, whether taken from individual pixels, multipixel subregions, or the entire active region. Negative fluctuations (corresponding to reduced intensity) are greater in number but weaker in amplitude, so that the median fluctuation i…

HINODE /EIS SPECTROSCOPIC VALIDATION OF VERY HOT PLASMA IMAGED WITH THE SOLAR DYNAMICS OBSERVATORY IN NON-FLARING ACTIVE REGION CORES

We use coronal imaging observations with SDO/AIA, and Hinode/EIS spectral data, to explore the potential of narrow band EUV imaging data for diagnosing the presence of hot (T >~5MK) coronal plasma in active regions. We analyze observations of two active regions (AR 11281, AR 11289) with simultaneous AIA imaging, and EIS spectral data, including the CaXVII line (at 192.8A) which is one of the few lines in the EIS spectral bands sensitive to hot coronal plasma even outside flares. After careful coalignment of the imaging and spectral data, we compare the morphology in a 3 color image combining the 171, 335, and 94A AIA spectral bands, with the image obtained for CaXVII emission from the an…

Evidence of nonthermal particles in coronal loops heated impulsively by nanoflares

The physical processes causing energy exchange between the Sun's hot corona and its cool lower atmosphere remain poorly understood. The chromosphere and transition region (TR) form an interface region between the surface and the corona that is highly sensitive to the coronal heating mechanism. High resolution observations with the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) reveal rapid variability (about 20 to 60 seconds) of intensity and velocity on small spatial scales at the footpoints of hot dynamic coronal loops. The observations are consistent with numerical simulations of heating by beams of non-thermal electrons, which are generated in small impulsive heating events called "corona…

MHD Modeling of Accretion Processes in Young Stars with the PLUTO Code

As shown by observations, many young stars (age<5-10 Myr) harbor a circumstellar disk and accrete material from it through the star-disk magnetosphere. Despite the large amount of observational data in the infrared, optical and X-ray bands, different issues regarding star-disk interactions are still yet open. Many of these issues need detailed physical models of the star-disk system for a better insight. To this end, we are developing a model describing the interaction between the accreting material and the star atmosphere, using the 3D Magneto-HydroDynamical (MHD) code PLUTO developed at the University of Torino. We plan to perform a set of demanding simulations on the PI2S2 Grid infrastru…

Coronal Loops: Observations and Modeling of Confined Plasma

Coronal loops are the building blocks of the X-ray bright solar corona. They owe their brightness to the dense confined plasma, and this review focuses on loops mostly as structures confining plasma. After a brief historical overview, the review is divided into two separate but not independent sections: the first illustrates the observational framework, the second reviews the theoretical knowledge. Quiescent loops and their confined plasma are considered, and therefore topics such as loop oscillations and flaring loops (except for non-solar ones which provide information on stellar loops) are not specifically addressed here. The observational section discusses loop classification and popula…

Modeling Non-Confined Coronal Flares: Dynamics and X-Ray Diagnostics

Long-lasting, intense, stellar X-ray flares may approach conditions of breaking magnetic confinement and evolving in open space. We explore this hypothesis with hydrodynamic simulations of flares occurring in a non-confined corona: model flares are triggered by a transient impulsive heating injected in a plane-parallel stratified corona. The plasma evolution is described by means of a numerical 2-D model in cylindrical geometry R,Z. We explore the space of fundamental parameters. As a reference model, we consider a flare triggered by a heating pulse that would cause a 20 MK flare if delivered in a 40000 km long closed loop. The modeled plasma evolution is described. The X-ray emission, spec…

One-dimensional hydrodynamic modeling of coronal plasmas on transputer arrays

Abstract We describe a concurrent implementation of the Palermo-Harvard hydrodynamic code on cost-effective and modularity expandable transputer arrays. We have tested the effectiveness of our approach by simulating an already well-studied compact solar-flare model on different transputer configurations and compared their performances with those of other machines. We have found that the speed of the concurrent program on a 16-T800 transputers array is ~1/9 of that of the equivalent code optimized for a CRAY X-MP/48. This work clearly shows that transputer-based arrays provide locally available high computing-power tools to extend the investigation of compact solar flares and similar astroph…

Evidence of Widespread Hot Plasma in a Nonflaring Coronal Active Region from Hinode/X-Ray Telescope

Nanoflares, short and intense heat pulses within spatially unresolved magnetic strands, are now considered a leading candidate to solve the coronal heating problem. However, the frequent occurrence of nanoflares requires that flare-hot plasma be present in the corona at all times. Its detection has proved elusive until now, in part because the intensities are predicted to be very faint. Here, we report on the analysis of an active region observed with five filters by Hinode/X-Ray Telescope (XRT) in 2006 November. We have used the filter ratio method to derive maps of temperature and emission measure (EM) both in soft and hard ratios. These maps are approximate in that the plasma is assumed …

X-ray emitting hot plasma in solar active regions observed by the SphinX spectrometer

Aims. The detection of very hot plasma in the quiescent corona is important for diagnosing heating mechanisms. The presence and the amount of such hot plasma is currently debated. The SphinX instrument on-board the CORONAS-PHOTON mission is sensitive to X-ray emission of energies well above 1 keV and provides the opportunity to detect the hot plasma component. Methods. We analysed the X-ray spectra of the solar corona collected by the SphinX spectrometer in May 2009 (when two active regions were present). We modelled the spectrum extracted from the whole Sun over a time window of 17 days in the 1.34− 7k eV energy band by adopting the latest release of the APED database. Results. The SphinX …

EUV FLICKERING OF SOLAR CORONAL LOOPS: A NEW DIAGNOSTIC OF CORONAL HEATING

A previous work of ours found the best agreement between EUV light curves observed in an active region core (with evidence of super-hot plasma) and those predicted from a model with a random combination of many pulse-heated strands with a power-law energy distribution. We extend that work by including spatially resolved strand modeling and by studying the evolution of emission along the loops in the EUV 94 angstrom and 335 angstrom channels of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Using the best parameters of the previous work as the input of the present one, we find that the amplitude of the random fluctuations driven by the random heat pulses increases …

Diagnostics of stellar flares from X-ray observations: from the decay to the rise phase

The diagnostics of stellar flaring coronal loops have been so far largely based on the analysis of the decay phase. We derive new diagnostics from the analysis of the rise and peak phase of stellar flares. We release the assumption of full equilibrium of the flaring loop at the flare peak, according to the frequently observed delay between the temperature and the density maximum. From scaling laws and hydrodynamic simulations we derive diagnostic formulas as a function of observable quantities and times. We obtain a diagnostic toolset related to the rise phase, including the loop length, density and aspect ratio. We discuss the limitations of this approach and find that the assumption of lo…

A coronal explosion on the flare star CN Leonis

We present simultaneous high-temporal and high-spectral resolution observations at optical and soft X-ray wavelengths of the nearby flare star CN Leo. During our observing campaign a major flare occurred, raising the star's instantaneous energy output by almost three orders of magnitude. The flare shows the often observed impulsive behavior, with a rapid rise and slow decay in the optical and a broad soft X-ray maximum about 200 seconds after the optical flare peak. However, in addition to this usually encountered flare phenomenology we find an extremely short (~2 sec) soft X-ray peak, which is very likely of thermal, rather than non-thermal nature and temporally coincides with the optical …

TIME-RESOLVED EMISSION FROM BRIGHT HOT PIXELS OF AN ACTIVE REGION OBSERVED IN THE EUV BAND WITH SDO/AIA AND MULTI-STRANDED LOOP MODELING

Evidence for small amounts of very hot plasma has been found in active regions and might be the indication of an impulsive heating, released at spatial scales smaller than the cross section of a single loop. We investigate the heating and substructure of coronal loops in the core of one such active region by analyzing the light curves in the smallest resolution elements of solar observations in two EUV channels (94 A and 335 A) from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on-board the Solar Dynamics Observatory. We model the evolution of a bundle of strands heated by a storm of nanoflares by means of a hydrodynamic 0D loop model (EBTEL). The light curves obtained from the random combination of tho…

Modeling the shock-cloud interaction in SN 1006: unveiling the origin of nonthermal X-ray and gamma-ray emission

The supernova remnant SN 1006 is a source of high-energy particles and its southwestern limb is interacting with a dense ambient cloud, thus being a promising region for gamma-ray hadronic emission. We aim at describing the physics and the nonthermal emission associated with the shock-cloud interaction to derive the physical parameters of the cloud (poorly constrained by the data analysis), to ascertain the origin of the observed spatial variations in the spectral properties of the X-ray synchrotron emission, and to predict spectral and morphological features of the resulting gamma-ray emission. We performed 3-D magnetohydrodynamic simulations modeling the evolution of SN 1006 and its inter…

Flares from small to large: X-ray spectroscopy of Proxima Centauri with XMM-Newton

(Abridged) We report results from a comprehensive study of the nearby M dwarf Proxima Centauri with the XMM-Newton satellite. We find strongly variable coronal X-ray emission, with flares ranging over a factor of 100 in peak flux. The low-level emission is found to be continuously variable. Several weak flares are characteristically preceded by an optical burst, compatible with predictions from standard solar flare models. We propose that the U band bursts are proxies for the elusive stellar non-thermal hard X-ray bursts suggested from solar observations. A very large X-ray flare was observed in its entirety, with a peak luminosity of 3.9E28 erg/s [0.15-10 keV] and a total X-ray energy of 1…

The Sun as an X-ray star: Active region evolution, rotational modulation, and implications for stellar X-ray variability

We study the contribution of an active region and its core to the luminosity and the spectrum of the Sun in the X-ray band and to the relevant solar emission measure vs. temperature distribution, EM(T). We also study the relevant changes in the course of four solar rotations, and the solar rotational modulation due to this active region, the only one present at that time. To this end, we have used a large sample of full-disk Yohkoh/SXT observations taken between July and October 1996, covering most of the active region evolution. From the Yohkoh/SXT data we have synthesized the X-ray spectra of the whole solar corona, and the focal plane data as they would be collected with Rosat/PSPC, XMM-…

The Sun as an X‐Ray Star. I. Deriving the Emission Measure Distribution versus Temperature of the Whole Solar Corona from theYohkoh/Soft X‐Ray Telescope Data

The scope of this work is to obtain the emission measure distributions versus temperature, EM(T ), of the whole solar corona from Yohkoh Soft X-ray Telescope images. As discussed in Paper II, the EM(T ) is our starting point for studying the Sun as an X-ray star. To this purpose, we need to extract as much information as possible from the Yohkoh/SXT data covering the whole range of the Yohkoh/SXT tem- perature sensitivity, i.e., 5.5 \ log T (K) \ 8. In particular at low photon counts and temperatures below 106 K, errors on the temperature and emission measure determination are expected to be large. To this end, we have made an extensive set of simulations to explore the nominal performance …

Investigating the Response of Loop Plasma to Nanoflare Heating Using RADYN Simulations

We present the results of 1D hydrodynamic simulations of coronal loops that are subject to nanoflares, caused by either in situ thermal heating or nonthermal electron (NTE) beams. The synthesized intensity and Doppler shifts can be directly compared with Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) and Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) observations of rapid variability in the transition region (TR) of coronal loops, associated with transient coronal heating. We find that NTEs with high enough low-energy cutoff (EC) deposit energy in the lower TR and chromosphere, causing blueshifts (up to approximately 20 kilometers per second) in the IRIS Si IV lines, which thermal conduction cannot repro…

Comparison of Hinode/XRT and RHESSI detection of hot plasma in the non-flaring solar corona

We compare observations of the non-flaring solar corona made simultaneously with Hinode/XRT and with RHESSI. The analyzed corona is dominated by a single active region on 12 November 2006. The comparison is made on emission measures. We derive emission measure distributions vs temperature of the entire active region from multifilter XRT data. We check the compatibility with the total emission measure values estimated from the flux measured with RHESSI if the emission come from isothermal plasma. We find that RHESSI and XRT data analyses consistently point to the presence of a minor emission measure component peaking at log T ~ 6.8-6.9. The discrepancy between XRT and RHESSI results is withi…

Quasi-Periodic Pulsations in Solar and Stellar Flares: A Review of Underpinning Physical Mechanisms and Their Predicted Observational Signatures

The phenomenon of quasi-periodic pulsations (QPPs) in solar and stellar flares has been known for over 50 years and significant progress has been made in this research area. It has become clear that QPPs are not rare—they are found in many flares and, therefore, robust flare models should reproduce their properties in a natural way. At least fifteen mechanisms/models have been developed to explain QPPs in solar flares, which mainly assume the presence of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) oscillations in coronal structures (magnetic loops and current sheets) or quasi-periodic regimes of magnetic reconnection. We review the most important and interesting results on flare QPPs, with an emphasis on the…

An X-rays study of the shock-cloud interaction in the Vela SNR

Sphinx measurements of the 2009 solar minimum x-ray emission

The SphinX X-ray spectrophotometer on the CORONAS-PHOTON spacecraft measured soft X-ray emission in the 1-15 keV energy range during the deep solar minimum of 2009 with a sensitivity much greater than GOES. Several intervals are identified when the X-ray flux was exceptionally low, and the flux and solar X-ray luminosity are estimated. Spectral fits to the emission at these times give temperatures of 1.7-1.9 MK and emission measures between 4 x 10^47 cm^-3 and 1.1 x 10^48 cm^-3. Comparing SphinX emission with that from the Hinode X-ray Telescope, we deduce that most of the emission is from general coronal structures rather than confined features like bright points. For one of 27 intervals o…

X-ray Flares of EV Lac: Statistics, Spectra, Diagnostics

We study the spectral and temporal behavior of X-ray flares from the active M-dwarf EV Lac in 200 ks of exposure with the Chandra/HETGS. We derive flare parameters by fitting an empirical function which characterizes the amplitude, shape, and scale. The flares range from very short (&lt;1 ks) to long (10 ks) duration events with a range of shapes and amplitudes for all durations. We extract spectra for composite flares to study their mean evolution and to compare flares of different lengths. Evolution of spectral features in the density-temperature plane shows probable sustained heating. The short flares are significantly hotter than the longer flares. We determined an upper limit to the Fe…

Role of local absorption on the X-ray emission from MHD accretion shocks in classical T Tauri stars

Accretion processes onto classical T Tauri stars (CTTSs) are believed to generate shocks at the stellar surface due to the impact of supersonic downflowing plasma. Although current models of accretion streams provide a plausible global picture of this process, several aspects are still unclear. For example, the observed X-ray luminosity in accretion shocks is, in general, well below the predicted value. A possible explanation discussed in the literature is in terms of significant absorption of the emission due to the thick surrounding medium. Here we consider a 2D MHD model describing an accretion stream propagating through the atmosphere of a CTTS and impacting onto its chromosphere. The m…

X-ray flare oscillations track plasma sloshing along star-disk magnetic tubes in Orion star-forming region

Pulsing X-ray emission tracks the plasma echo traveling in an extremely long magnetic tube that flares in an Orion Pre-Main Sequence (PMS) star. On the Sun, flares last from minutes to a few hours and the longest-lasting typically involve arcades of closed magnetic tubes. Long-lasting X-ray flares are observed in PMS stars. Large-amplitude (~20%) long-period (~3 hours) pulsations are detected in the light curve of day-long flares observed by the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) on-board Chandra from PMS stars in the Orion cluster. Detailed hydrodynamic modeling of two flares observed on V772 Ori and OW Ori shows that these pulsations may track the sloshing of plasma along a single l…

Bright hot impacts by erupted fragments falling back on the Sun: UV redshifts in stellar accretion

A solar eruption after a flare on 7 Jun 2011 produced EUV-bright impacts of fallbacks far from the eruption site, observed with the Solar Dynamics Observatory. These impacts can be taken as a template for the impact of stellar accretion flows. Broad red-shifted UV lines have been commonly observed in young accreting stars. Here we study the emission from the impacts in the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly's UV channels and compare the inferred velocity distribution to stellar observations. We model the impacts with 2D hydrodynamic simulations. We find that the localised UV 1600A emission and its timing with respect to the EUV emission can be explained by the impact of a cloud of fragments. The …

Bright hot impacts by erupted fragments falling back on the Sun: a template for stellar accretion.

Impacts of falling fragments observed after the eruption of a filament in a solar flare on 7 June 2011 are similar to those inferred for accretion flows on young stellar objects. As imaged in the ultraviolet (UV)-extreme UV range by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory, many impacts of dark, dense matter display uncommonly intense, compact brightenings. High-resolution hydrodynamic simulations show that such bright spots, with plasma temperatures increasing from ~10(4) to ~10(6) kelvin, occur when high-density plasma (>>10(10) particles per cubic centimeter) hits the solar surface at several hundred kilometers per second, producing high-energy emission as …

Coronal structure and dynamics

Recent spatial solar missions, such as Hinode and Solar Dynamics Observatory, reveal a more and more highly structured and dynamic corona, with an increasing importance and debate. The connection of structure and dynamics to coronal heating is fundamental. Observations and evidence of fine coronal structuring, e.g. moss and emission measure distributions, and dynamics, e.g. Doppler shifts, spicules, are discussed and compared to current vision and models. Open questions and future perspectives are outlined to conclude.

Effect of the Magnetic Field on the Propagation of Coronal Mass Ejections

CALOS: an experiment to study the solar corona with an array of NTD Ge microcalorimeters

In response to the Italian Space Agency announcement "New Ideas for Space Missions", we have proposed an observatory "CALorimetri per Osservazioni Solari" (CALOS) that will perform spatially resolved (Deltatheta similar to 2) X-ray spectroscopy of the solar corona over the 0.1 - 10 keV band using an array of NTD germanium microcalorimeters. The observatory will also include an X-ray polarimeter of radically new design that will study the hard X-ray solar emission and its polarization and will serve as a flare alarm.

MHD modelling of coronal loops: injection of high-speed chromospheric flows

Observations reveal a correspondence between chromospheric type II spicules and bright upwardly moving fronts in the corona observed in the EUV band. However, theoretical considerations suggest that these flows are unlikely to be the main source of heating in coronal magnetic loops. We investigate the propagation of high-speed chromospheric flows into coronal magnetic flux tubes, and the possible production of emission in the EUV band. We simulate the propagation of a dense $10^4$ K chromospheric jet upwards along a coronal loop, by means of a 2-D cylindrical MHD model, including gravity, radiative losses, thermal conduction and magnetic induction. The jet propagates in a complete atmospher…

Guided flows in coronal magnetic flux tubes

There is evidence for coronal plasma flows to break down into fragments and to be laminar. We investigate this effect by modeling flows confined along magnetic channels. We consider a full MHD model of a solar atmosphere box with a dipole magnetic field. We compare the propagation of a cylindrical flow perfectly aligned to the field to that of another one with a slight misalignment. We assume a flow speed of 200 km/s, and an ambient magnetic field of 30 G. We find that while the aligned flow maintains its cylindrical symmetry while it travels along the magnetic tube, the misaligned one is rapidly squashed on one side, becoming laminar and eventually fragmented because of the interaction and…

MHD evolution of a fragment of a CME core in the outer solar corona

Detailed hydrodynamic modeling explained several features of a fragment of the core of a Coronal Mass Ejection observed with SoHO/UVCS at 1.7 Ro on 12 December 1997, but some questions remained unsolved. We investigate the role of the magnetic fields in the thermal insulation and the expansion of an ejected fragment (cloud) traveling upwards in the outer corona. We perform MHD simulations including the effects of thermal conduction and radiative losses of a dense spherical or cylindrical cloud launched upwards in the outer corona, with various assumptions on the strength and topology of the ambient magnetic field; we also consider the case of a cylindrical cloud with an internal magnetic fi…

X-rays from accretion shocks in classical T Tauri stars: 2D MHD modeling and the role of local absorption

AbstractIn classical T Tauri stars (CTTS) strong shocks are formed where the accretion funnel impacts with the denser stellar chromosphere. Although current models of accretion provide a plausible global picture of this process, some fundamental aspects are still unclear: the observed X-ray luminosity in accretion shocks is order of magnitudes lower than predicted; the observed density and temperature structures of the hot post-shock region are puzzling and still unexplained by models.To address these issues we performed 2D MHD simulations describing an accretion stream impacting onto the chromosphere of a CTTS, exploring different configurations and strengths of the magnetic field. From th…

Bright Hot Impacts by Erupted Fragments Falling Back on the Sun: Magnetic Channelling

Dense plasma fragments were observed to fall back on the solar surface by the Solar Dynamics Observatory after an eruption on 7 June 2011, producing strong EUV brightenings. Previous studies investigated impacts in regions of weak magnetic field. Here we model the $\sim~300$ km/s impact of fragments channelled by the magnetic field close to active regions. In the observations, the magnetic channel brightens before the fragment impact. We use a 3D-MHD model of spherical blobs downfalling in a magnetized atmosphere. The blob parameters are constrained from the observation. We run numerical simulations with different ambient density and magnetic field intensity. We compare the model emission i…

Multi-wavelength diagnostics of accretion in an X-ray selected sample of CTTSs

High resolution X-ray spectroscopy has revealed soft X-rays from high density plasma in Classical T-Tauri stars (CTTSs), probably arising from the accretion shock region. However, the mass accretion rates derived from the X-ray observations are consistently lower than those derived from UV/optical/NIR studies. We aim to test the hypothesis that the high density soft X-ray emission is from accretion by analysing optical accretion tracers from an X-ray selected sample of CTTSs in a homogeneous manner. We analyse optical spectra of a sample of CTTSs and calculate the accretion rates based on measuring optical emission lines. These are then compared to the accretion rates derived from the X-ray…

Collisionless shock heating of heavy ions in SN 1987A

Astrophysical shocks at all scales, from those in the heliosphere up to the cosmological shock waves, are typically "collisionless", because the thickness of their jump region is much shorter than the collisional mean free path. Across these jumps, electrons, protons, and ions are expected to be heated at different temperatures. Supernova remnants (SNRs) are ideal targets to study collisionless processes because of their bright post-shock emission and fast shocks. Although optical observations of Balmer-dominated shocks in young SNRs showed that the post-shock proton temperature is higher than the electron temperature, the actual dependence of the post-shock temperature on the particle mass…

Crushing of interstellar gas clouds in supernova remnants. I. The role of thermal conduction and radiative losses

We model the hydrodynamic interaction of a shock wave of an evolved supernova remnant with a small interstellar gas cloud like the ones observed in the Cygnus loop and in the Vela SNR. We investigate the interplay between radiative cooling and thermal conduction during cloud evolution and their effect on the mass and energy exchange between the cloud and the surrounding medium. Through the study of two cases characterized by different Mach numbers of the primary shock (M = 30 and 50, corresponding to a post-shock temperature $T\approx 1.7\times 10^6$ K and $\approx 4.7\times 10^6$ K, respectively), we explore two very different physical regimes: for M = 30, the radiative losses dominate the…

Modeling SNR shock waves expanding through the magnetized inhomogeneous interstellar medium

We review our recent results on the MHD modeling of supernova shock waves propagating through the magnetized and inhomogeneous ISM. We explore the role of different physical processes simultaneously at work, namely magnetic-field-oriented thermal conduction, radiative cooling and MHD effects, in determining: 1) the mass and energy exchanges between different phases of the ISM and 2) the morphology of supernova remnants as observed in different bands. Our projects required an advanced 3D MHD code for parallel computers, FLASH, and high-performance computing. We discuss the results derived from the analysis of the local interaction of strong shocks with inhomogeneities of the ISM, and those d…

SphinX: The Solar Photometer in X-Rays

Solar Photometer in X-rays (SphinX) was a spectrophotometer developed to observe the Sun in soft X-rays. The instrument observed in the energy range ≈ 1 – 15 keV with resolution ≈ 0.4 keV. SphinX was flown on the Russian CORONAS–PHOTON satellite placed inside the TESIS EUV and X telescope assembly. The spacecraft launch took place on 30 January 2009 at 13:30 UT at the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in Russia. The SphinX experiment mission began a couple of weeks later on 20 February 2009 when the first telemetry dumps were received. The mission ended nine months later on 29 November 2009 when data transmission was terminated. SphinX provided an excellent set of observations during very low solar activ…

SphinX: A fast solar Photometer in X-rays

The scientific goals and construction details of a new design, Polish X-ray spectrophotometer are given. It will be incorporated within the Russian TESIS X and EUV complex aboard the forthcoming CORO-NAS solar mission. SphinX (Solar Photometer in X-rays) will use PIN silicon detectors for high time resolution (0.01 s) measurements of the solar spectra of quiet and active corona in the range 0.5–15 keV. A new filter-fluorescence target concept will be employed to allow for a fast photometry of the solar X-ray flux variations in selected, well defined narrow spectral bands including the Fe XXVI and Fe XXV iron line groups.

An iterative method in a probabilistic approach to the spectral inverse problem - Differential emission measure from line spectra and broadband data

Inverse problems are of great importance in astrophysics for deriving information about the physical characteristics of hot optically thin plasma sources from their EUV and X-ray spectra. We describe and test an iterative method developed within the framework of a probabilistic approach to the spectral inverse problem for determining the thermal structures of the emitting plasma. We also demonstrate applications of this method to both high resolution line spectra and broadband imaging data. Our so-called Bayesian iterative method (BIM) is an iterative procedure based on Bayes' theorem and is used to reconstruct differential emission measure (DEM) distributions. To demonstrate the abilities …

A Brightening Coronal Loop Observed byTRACE. II. Loop Modeling and Constraints on Heating

This is the second of two papers dedicated to the brightening of a coronal loop observed by the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) on 1998 June 26; it aims at hydrodynamic modeling of the brightening. Since the loop geometry is practically unchanged during the brightening, the evolution of the plasma confined in the loop is described with a one-dimensional hydrodynamic time-dependent numerical model, and from the results the emission along the loop in the TRACE 171 A band is synthesized. The information from Paper I is used to derive the geometry and the initial configuration of the loop as well as for comparison with the results of the model. The modeling is focused to determin…

Flare diagnostics from loop modeling of a stellar flare observed with XMM-Newton

Abstract XMM-Newton data of an X-ray flare observed on Proxima Centauri provide detailed and challenging constraints for flare modeling. The comparison of the data with the results of time-dependent hydrodynamic loop modeling of this flare allows us to constrain not only the loop morphology, but also the details of the heating function. The results show that even a complex flare event like this can be described with a relatively few – though constrained – components: two loop systems, i.e., a single loop and an arcade, and two heat components, an intense pulse probably located at the loop footpoints followed by a low gradual decay distributed in the coronal part of the loop. The similarity …

Modeling Magnetohydrodynamics And Non Equilibrium SoHO/UVCS Line Emission Of Cme Shocks

Inclination of Large Coronal Loops Observed by TRACE

A TRACE field of view well inside the solar disk shows very well defined large loops, likely to be very inclined to the solar surface. On the other hand there is little evidence of large loops perpendicular to the solar surface. We show that this does not mean that most large loops have such large inclination but that perpendicular loops are much less visible to TRACE, because of density stratification. We quantitatively evaluate this effect by modeling in detail loops with different inclinations.

Spectroscopy of Very Hot Plasma in Non-flaring Parts of a Solar Limb Active Region: Spatial and Temporal Properties

In this work we investigate the thermal structure of an off-limb active region (AR) in various non-flaring areas, as it provides key information on the way these structures are heated. In particular, we concentrate on the very hot component (&gt;3 MK) as it is a crucial element to distinguish between different heating mechanisms. We present an analysis using Fe and Ca emission lines from both the Solar Ultraviolet Measurement of Emitted Radiation (SUMER) on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and the EUV Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on board Hinode. A data set covering all ionization stages from Fe X to Fe XIX has been used for the thermal analysis (both differential emission …

A Brightening Coronal Loop Observed byTRACE. I. Morphology and Evolution

We analyze the transient brightening of a solar coronal loop observed, at high time cadence (30 s) and spatial resolution (05 pixel size), with the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) in the 171 A band on 1998 June 26. The loop, located in AR 8253, is ≈1010 cm long and inclined with respect to the vertical to the solar surface. Its geometry and shape do not change significantly during the brightening, which lasts for ~2 hr and is preceded by highly dynamic events in nearby and perhaps interacting loops. The loop footpoints brighten first; after ~10 minutes, moving brightness fronts rise initially from the northern footpoint, and after another ~7 minutes from the southern one, at …

X-raying hadronic acceleration at the SN 1006 shock front

Shock fronts in young supernova remnants are the best candidates for being sites of cosmic rays acceleration up to a few PeV, though conclusive experimental evidence is still lacking. Theoretical models predict that particle acceleration can modify the post-shock properties, e. g. by increasing the plasma density. We exploited the Large Program of deep XMM-Newton observations of SN 1006 to verify this prediction. We focused on the rim of the supernova remnant and by performing spatially resolved spectral analysis, we found that the shock compression ratio significantly increases in regions where particle acceleration is efficient, in agreement with expectations. Our results provide observat…

X-ray Flares in Orion Low Mass Stars

Context. X-ray flares are common phenomena in pre-main sequence stars. Their analysis gives insights into the physics at work in young stellar coronae. The Orion Nebula Cluster offers a unique opportunity to study large samples of young low mass stars. This work is part of the Chandra Orion Ultradeep project (COUP), an ~10 day long X-ray observation of the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC). Aims. Our main goal is to statistically characterize the flare-like variability of 165 low mass (0.1-0.3 M_sun) ONC members in order to test and constrain the physical scenario in which flares explain all the observed emission. Methods. We adopt a maximum likelihood piece-wise representation of the observed X-r…

Modeling solar and stellar flares

Abstract The thermal phase of solar X-ray flares has been described as heating-triggered evolution of plasma confined in coronal loops. This paper describes how the modeling of the thermal phase of spatially resolved solar X-ray flares has been extended to investigate spatially unresolved stellar X-ray flares with different scopes, aims and perspectives. Hydrodynamic models are able to describe the evolution of global flare features, such as the X-ray light curves, and to put constraints on heating location. Based on the solar analogy, either detailed hydrodynamic models or approximate analytical descriptions of the decay of flaring coronal loops or loop systems have been extensively applie…

Nonequilibrium of Ionization and the Detection of Hot Plasma in Nanoflare‐heated Coronal Loops

Impulsive nanoflares are expected to transiently heat the plasma confined in coronal loops to temperatures of the order of 10 MK. Such hot plasma is hardly detected in quiet and active regions, outside flares. During rapid and short heat pulses in rarified loops the plasma can be highly out of equilibrium of ionization. Here we investigate the effects of the non-equilibrium of ionization (NEI) on the detection of hot plasma in coronal loops. Time-dependent loop hydrodynamic simulations are specifically devoted to this task, including saturated thermal conduction, and coupled to the detailed solution of the equations of ionization rate for several abundant elements. In our simulations, initi…

Probing the effects of hadronic acceleration at the SN 1006 shock front

AbstractSupernova remnant shocks are strong candidates for being the source of energetic cosmic rays and hadron acceleration is expected to increase the shock compression ratio, providing higher post-shock densities. We exploited the deep observations of the XMM-Newton Large Program on SN 1006 to verify this prediction. Spatially resolved spectral analysis led us to detect X-ray emission from the shocked ambient medium in SN 1006 and to find that its density significantly increases in regions where particle acceleration is efficient. Our results provide evidence for the effects of acceleration of cosmic ray hadrons on the post-shock plasma in supernova remnants.

Accurate Period Determination of an Eclipsing Binary X-Ray Source in M33

We have analyzed the time variability of one of the X-ray sources in M33 observed by both the ROSAT and Einstein Observatory telescopes. The light curve of M33 X-7 exhibits a variability pattern of high and low states, suggesting an eclipsing binary X-ray source. The data suggest a binary period P=1.78572 days (very close to that of Her X-1) and an eclipse duration of ∼0.4 days. The low phase lasts about one-fourth of the period as in Cen X-3

Fine Thermal Structure of a Flare Observed with Hinode/XRT

In this work we investigate the fine thermal structure of a flare observed in November 2006 by Hinode/XRT. For this analysis we adopted a new technique which optimizes the use of five different filters, resulting in a good diagnostic of temperature.

Multi-phase interstellar clouds in the Vela SNR resolved with XMM-Newton

XMM-Newton spatial/spectral resolution and high effective area allow to deepen our knowledge about the shocks in Supernova Remnants and their interaction with the interstellar medium. We present the analysis of an EPIC observation of the northern rim of the Vela SNR and we compare the X-ray and optical morphology of the emission. We derive a description of the internal structure of the shocked interstellar clouds, arguing that the transmitted shock model is compatible with our data. We also suggest that thermal conduction between clouds and inter-cloud medium is very efficient and produces the evaporation of the clouds in the interstellar medium. � 2005 COSPAR. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Al…

Star-disk interaction in classical T Tauri stars revealed using wavelet analysis

The extension of the corona of classical T Tauri stars (CTTS) is under discussion. The standard model of magnetic configuration of CTTS predicts that coronal magnetic flux tubes connect the stellar atmosphere to the inner region of the disk. However, differential rotation may disrupt these long loops. The results from Hydrodynamic modeling of X-ray flares observed in CTTS confirming the star-disk connection hypothesis are still controversial. Some authors suggest the presence of the accretion disk prevent the stellar corona to extent beyond the co-rotation radius, while others simply are not confident with the methods used to derive loop lengths. We use independent procedures to determine t…

Deep X-ray view of the Class I YSO Elias 29 with XMM-Newton and NuSTAR

[Abridged] We investigated the X-ray characteristics of the Class I YSO Elias 29 with joint XMM-Newton and NuSTAR observations of 300 ks and 450 ks, respectively. These are the first observations of a very young (&lt;1 Myr) stellar object in a band encompassing simultaneously both soft and hard X-rays. In addition to the hot Fe complex at 6.7 keV, we observed fluorescent emission from Fe at $\sim6.4$ keV, confirming the previous findings. The line at 6.4 keV is detected during quiescent and flaring states and its flux is variable. The equivalent width is found varying in the $\approx 0.15--0.5$ keV range. These values make unrealistic a simple model with a centrally illuminated disk and sug…

Temperature Distribution of a Non-flaring Active Region from Simultaneous Hinode XRT and EIS Observations

We analyze coordinated Hinode XRT and EIS observations of a non-flaring active region to investigate the thermal properties of coronal plasma taking advantage of the complementary diagnostics provided by the two instruments. In particular we want to explore the presence of hot plasma in non-flaring regions. Independent temperature analyses from the XRT multi-filter dataset, and the EIS spectra, including the instrument entire wavelength range, provide a cross-check of the different temperature diagnostics techniques applicable to broad-band and spectral data respectively, and insights into cross-calibration of the two instruments. The emission measure distribution, EM(T), we derive from the…

Mass Accretion Impacts in Classical T Tauri Stars: A Multi-disciplinary Approach

Accretion of matter is a process that plays a central role in the physics of young stellar objects. The analysis of the structure by which matter settles on the star can unveil key information about the process of star formation by providing details on mass accretion rates, stellar magnetic field configurations, possible effects of accretion on the stellar coronal activity, etc. Here we review some of the achievements obtained by our group by exploiting a multi-disciplinary approach based on the analysis of multi-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations, multi-wavelength observations, and laboratory experiments of accretion impacts occurring onto the surface of classical T Tauri stars (C…

Shock-cloud interaction in the Vela SNR II. Hydrodynamic model

In the framework of the study of the X-ray and optical emission in supernova remnants we focus on an isolated X-ray knot in the northern rim of the Vela SNR (Vela FilD), whose X-ray emission has been studied and discussed in Paper I. We aim at understanding the physical origin of the X-ray and optical emission in FilD, at understanding the role of the different physical processes at work, and at obtaining a key for the interpretation of future X-ray observations of SNRs. To this end we have pursued an accurate ``forward'' modeling of the interaction of the Vela SNR shock with an ISM cloud. We perform hydrodynamic simulations and we directly compare the observables synthesized from the simul…

Shock-cloud interaction in the Vela SNR: the XMM-Newton view

Modeling an X-ray Flare on Proxima Centauri: evidence of two flaring loop components and of two heating mechanisms at work

We model in detail a flare observed on Proxima Centauri with the EPIC-PN on board XMM-Newton at high statistics and high time resolution and coverage. Time-dependent hydrodynamic loop modeling is used to describe the rise and peak of the light curve, and a large fraction of the decay, including its change of slope and a secondary maximum, over a duration of more than 2 hours. The light curve, the emission measure and the temperature derived from the data allow us to constrain the loop morphology and the heating function and to show that this flare can be described with two components: a major one triggered by an intense heat pulse injected in a single flaring loop with half-length ~1.0 10^{…

Predicting the time variation of radio emission from MHD simulations of a flaring T-Tauri star

ABSTRACT We model the time-dependent radio emission from a disc accretion event in a T-Tauri star using 3D, ideal magnetohydrodynamic simulations combined with a gyrosynchrotron emission and radiative transfer model. We predict for the first time, the multifrequency (1–1000 GHz) intensity and circular polarization from a flaring T-Tauri star. A flux tube, connecting the star with its circumstellar disc, is populated with a distribution of non-thermal electrons that is allowed to decay exponentially after a heating event in the disc and the system is allowed to evolve. The energy distribution of the electrons, as well as the non-thermal power-law index and loss rate, are varied to see their …

Geometry Diagnostics of a Stellar Flare from Fluorescent X-Rays

We present evidence of Fe fluorescent emission in the Chandra HETGS spectrum of the single G-type giant HR 9024 during a large flare. In analogy to solar X-ray observations, we interpret the observed Fe K$\alpha$ line as being produced by illumination of the photosphere by ionizing coronal X-rays, in which case, for a given Fe photospheric abundance, its intensity depends on the height of the X-ray source. The HETGS observations, together with 3D Monte Carlo calculations to model the fluorescence emission, are used to obtain a direct geometric constraint on the scale height of the flaring coronal plasma. We compute the Fe fluorescent emission induced by the emission of a single flaring coro…

A detailed study of the rise phase of a long duration X-ray flare in the young star TWA 11B

We analyzed a long duration flare observed in a serendipitous XMM-Newton detection of the M star CD-39 7717B (TWA 11B), member of the young stellar association TW Hya (~ 8 Myr). Only the rise phase (with a duration of ~ 35 ks) and possibly the flare peak were observed. We took advantage of the high count-rate of the X-ray source to carry out a detailed analysis of its spectrum during the whole exposure. After a careful analysis, we interpreted the rise phase as resulting from the ignition of a first group of loops (event A) which triggered a subsequent two-ribbon flare (event B). Event A was analyzed using a single-loop model, while a two-ribbon model was applied for event B. Loop semi-leng…

Chandra study of the eclipsing M dwarf binary, YY Gem

The eclipsing M dwarf binary system, YY Gem, was observed using Chandra covering 140 ks (2Prot) in total, split into two even exposures separated by 0.76 d (0.94 Prot). The system was extremely active: three energetic flares were observed over the course of these observations. The flaring and non-flaring states of the system are analysed in this paper. The activity level increased between the first and second observations even during the quiescent (non-flaring) phases. An analysis of the dynamics of the X-ray-emitting plasma suggests that both components are significantly active. Contemporaneous Hα spectra also suggest that both components show similar levels of activity. The primary star i…

Plasma Diagnostics and Magnetic Complexity of a Post-Flare Active Region with Hinode/XRT: Spatial and Temporal Evolution

Flares are localized phenomena in active regions, but the magnetic and plasma responses may propagate to a larger area. In this work we investigate the temporal evolution of a flare in an active region with particular attention to the morphological details, and to the temperature and emission measure diagnostics allowed by Hinode/XRT.

Three X-ray Flares Near Primary Eclipse of the RS CVn Binary XY UMa

We report on an archival X-ray observation of the eclipsing RS CVn binary XY UMa ($\rm P_{orb}\approx$ 0.48d). In two $\emph{Chandra}$ ACIS observations spanning 200 ks and almost five orbital periods, three flares occurred. We find no evidence for eclipses in the X-ray flux. The flares took place around times of primary eclipse, with one flare occurring shortly ($<0.125\rm P_{orb}$) after a primary eclipse, and the other two happening shortly ($<0.05\rm P_{orb}$) before a primary eclipse. Two flares occurred within roughly one orbital period ($\Delta \phi\approx1.024\rm P_{orb}$) of each other. We analyze the light curve and spectra of the system, and investigate coronal length scales both…

Spatial identification of the overionized plasma in W49B

Recent Suzaku X-ray observations of the ejecta-dominated supernova remnant W49B have shown that in the global spectrum there is a clear indication for the presence of overionized plasma whose physical origin is still under debate. In order to ascertain the physical origin of such a rapidly cooling plasma, we focus on the study of its spatial localization within the X-ray emitting ejecta. We confirm the presence of a saw-edged excess (interpreted as a strong radiative recombination continuum) in the global spectrum above 8 keV, emerging above the ionization-equilibrium model. We produce a hardness ratio map to determine where the plasma is overionized and we perform a spectral analysis of th…

Modeling a coronal loop heated by magnetohydrodynamic turbulence nanoflares

We model the hydrodynamic evolution of the plasma confined in a coronal loop, 30,000 km long, subject to the heating of nanoflares due to intermittent magnetic dissipative events in the MHD turbulence produced by loop footpoint motions. We use the time-dependent distribution of energy dissipation along the loop obtained from a hybrid shell model, occurring for a magnetic field of about 10 G in the corona; the relevant heating per unit volume along the loop is used in the Palermo-Harvard loop plasma hydrodynamic model. We describe the results, focusing on the effects produced by the most intense heat pulses, which lead to loop temperatures between 1 and 1.5 MK.

Reconnection nanojets in the solar corona

P.A. acknowledges STFC support from grant numbers ST/R004285/2 and ST/T000384/1 and support from the International Space Science Institute, Bern, Switzerland to the International Teams on ‘Implications for coronal heating and magnetic fields from coronal rain observations and modeling’ and ‘Observed Multi-Scale Variability of Coronal Loops as a Probe of Coronal Heating’. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 647214). P.T. was also supported by contracts 8100002705 and SP02H1701R from Lockheed-Martin to the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), and NASA c…

Multiwavelength diagnostics of accretion in an X-ray selected sample of CTTSs

Context. High resolution X-ray spectroscopy has revealed soft X-rays from high density plasma in classical T Tauri stars (CTTSs), probably arising from the accretion shock region. However, the mass accretion rates derived from the X-ray observations are consistently lower than those derived from UV/optical/NIR studies. Aims: We aim to test the hypothesis that the high density soft X-ray emission originates from accretion by analysing, in a homogeneous manner, optical accretion indicators for an X-ray selected sample of CTTSs. Methods: We analyse optical spectra of the X-ray selected sample of CTTSs and calculate the accretion rates based on measuring the Hα, Hβ, Hγ, He ii 4686 Å, He i 5016 …

A stellar flare-coronal mass ejection event revealed by X-ray plasma motions

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs), often associated with flares, are the most powerful magnetic phenomena occurring on the Sun. Stars show magnetic activity levels up to 10^4 times higher, and CME effects on stellar physics and circumstellar environments are predicted to be significant. However, stellar CMEs remain observationally unexplored. Using time-resolved high-resolution X-ray spectroscopy of a stellar flare on the active star HR 9024 observed with Chandra/HETGS, we distinctly detected Doppler shifts in S XVI, Si XIV, and Mg XII lines that indicate upward and downward motions of hot plasmas (~10-25 MK) within the flaring loop, with velocity v~100-400 km/s, in agreement with a model of fl…

Shock-cloud interaction in the Vela SNR observed with XMM-Newton

We analyzed an XMM-Newton EPIC observation of a bright knot, named FilD, in the northern rim of the Vela SNR, where the shock has encountered a cloud. The good combination of sensitivity, spectral, and spatial resolution allowed us to describe the internal structure of the observed ISM clouds and to obtain estimates of their temperature, density, O, Ne, and Fe abundances, and of their extension along the line of sight. We also examined the interaction of the shock with the FilD knot and estimated that the time elapsed from the shock impact is about one cloud crushing time. Our analysis allowed us to conclude that the observed X-ray emission is best explained by the propagation of transmitte…

A large X-ray flare from the Herbig Ae star V892 Tau

We report the XMM-Newton observation of a large X-ray flare from the Herbig Ae star V892 Tau. The apparent low mass companion of V892 Tau, V892 Tau NE, is unresolved by XMM-Newton. Nevertheless there is compelling evidence from combined XMM-Newton and Chandra data that the origin of the flare is the Herbig Ae star V892 Tau. During the flare the X-ray luminosity of V892 Tau increases by a factor of ~15, while the temperature of the plasma increases from kT ~ 1.5 keV to kT ~ 8 keV. From the scaling of the flare event, based on hydrodynamic modeling, we conclude that a 500 G magnetic field is needed in order to confine the plasma. Under the assumptions that a dynamo mechanism is required to ge…

Modeling accretion shocks on CTTSs and their X-ray emission

Recent high spectral resolution X-ray observations of some CTTSs show the presence of high density plasma (ne=10^{11}-10^{13} cm^{-3}) at temperature T=2-3 MK. This plasma is likely heated up by an accretion shock on the star surface. We investigate this issue by an accurate modelling of the impact of an accretion stream onto the stellar chromosphere. Specifically, we present a large set of 1D hydrodynamical simulations aimed at investigating the physical properties of the system as a function of the density, and the velocity of the accretion stream and of the abundances of the heavy elements. We also synthesize the plasma X-ray emission from the simulations results, in order to link the ob…

Sub-Structuring Dynamics and Heating in Dense Coronal Structures

Dense coronal plasma is confined in magnetic loops, the building blocks of the bright X-ray corona. We overview recent findings from the analysis of confined coronal plasma observed with SoHO and TRACE and its interpretation. Internal substructuring, mass transport and dynamics, and heating processes are discussed.

Magnetic activity and the solar corona: first results from the Hinode satellite

The structure, dynamics and evolution of the solar corona are governed by the magnetic field. In spite of significant progresses in our insight of the physics of the so- lar corona, several problems are still under debate, e.g. the role of impulsive events and waves in coronal heating, and the origin of eruptions, flares and CMEs. The Hinode mis- sion has started on 22 september 2006 and aims at giving new answers to these questions. The satellite contains three main instruments, two high resolution telescopes, one in the optical and one in the X-ray band, and an EUV imaging spectrometer. On the Italian side, INAF/Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo has contributed with the ground-calibrati…

New view of the corona of classical T Tauri stars: Effects of flaring activity in circumstellar disks

Classical T Tauri stars (CTTSs) are young low-mass stellar objects accreting mass from their circumstellar disks. They are characterized by high levels of coronal activity as revealed by X-ray observations. This activity may affect the disk stability and the circumstellar environment. Here we investigate if an intense coronal activity due to flares occurring close to the accretion disk may perturb the inner disk stability, disrupt the inner part of the disk and, possibly, trigger accretion phenomena with rates comparable with those observed. We model a magnetized protostar surrounded by an accretion disk through 3D magnetohydrodinamic simulations. We explore cases characterized by a dipole …

Fine Thermal Structure of a Coronal Active Region

著者人数：12名

The Mouse That Roared: A Superflare from the dMe Flare Star EV Lac Detected by Swift and Konus-Wind

We report on a large stellar flare from the nearby dMe flare star EV Lac observed by the Swift and Konus-Wind satellites and the Liverpool Telescope. It is the first large stellar flare from a dMe flare star to result in a Swift trigger based on its hard X-ray intensity. Its peak f_X from 0.3--100 keV of 5.3x10^-8 erg/cm2/s is nearly 7000 times larger than the star's quiescent coronal flux, and the change in magnitude in the white filter is &gt;4.7. This flare also caused a transient increase in EV Lac's bolometric luminosity (L_bol) during the early stages of the flare, with a peak estimated L_X/L_bol ~3.1. We apply flare loop hydrodynamic modeling to the plasma parameter temporal changes …

High Performance Computing on the COMETA Grid Infrastructure

We present the High Performance Computing (HPC) projects jointly developed at the INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Palermo and at the DSFA - Universita` di Palermo which benefits of the Grid infrastructure of COMETA. We have contributed to setup the infrastructure in order to run HPC applications on the Grid. We report on our experience regarding to porting HPC applications to the Grid and to the first HPC simulations performed. The most demanding simulations describe the interaction of a magnetized supernova shock wave with an interstellar gas cloud. We discuss the resources required for the simulations, the performance and the scalability of our code on the Grid, and present first resul…

Observability and diagnostics in the X-ray band of shock-cloud interactions in supernova remnants

X-ray emitting features originating from the interaction of supernova shock waves with small interstellar gas clouds are revealed in many X-ray observations of evolved supernova remnants (e.g. Cygnus Loop and Vela), but their interpretation is not straightforward. We develop a self-consistent method for the analysis and interpretation of shock-cloud interactions in middle-aged supernova remnants, which can provide the key parameters of the system and the role of relevant physical effects like the thermal conduction, without the need to run ad-hoc numerical simulations and to bother of morphology details. We explore all the possible values of the shock speed and cloud density contrast releva…

XMM-Newton evidence of shocked ISM in SN 1006: indications of hadronic acceleration

Shock fronts in young supernova remnants are the best candidates for being sites of cosmic ray acceleration up to a few PeV, though conclusive experimental evidence is still lacking. Hadron acceleration is expected to increase the shock compression ratio, providing higher postshock densities, but X-ray emission from shocked ambient medium has not firmly been detected yet in remnants where particle acceleration is at work. We exploited the deep observations of the XMM-Newton Large Program on SN 1006 to verify this prediction. We performed spatially resolved spectral analysis of a set of regions covering the southeastern rim of SN 1006. We studied the spatial distribution of the thermodynamic…

Mass accretion to young stars triggered by flaring activity in circumstellar discs

Young low-mass stars are characterized by ejection of collimated outflows and by circumstellar disks which they interact with through accretion of mass. The accretion builds up the star to its final mass and is also believed to power the mass outflows, which may in turn remove the excess angular momentum from the star-disk system. However, although the process of mass accretion is a critical aspect of star formation, some of its mechanisms are still to be fully understood. A point not considered to date and relevant for the accretion process is the evidence of very energetic and frequent flaring events in these stars. Flares may easily perturb the stability of the disks, thus influencing th…

A two-dimensional hydrodynamic code for astrophysical flows

We present a two-dimensional hydrodynamic code suited to study astrophysical flows in many different environments. The code solves the hydrodynamic equations in conservative form in the most used coordinate systems and is based on an explicitfully two-dimensional flux corrected transport (FCT) technique, which ensures an accurate description of steep gradient regions and shocks, a relatively ample flexibility to include a variety of physical effects, and a good efficiency for speed on vector or array processors. Extensive testing has allowed an accurate «tuning» of the FCT numerical parameters. This code is among the best FCT codes and performs well in a whole set of demanding strongly nonl…

XMM‐NewtonObservations of the Supernova Remnant IC 443. I. Soft X‐Ray Emission from Shocked Interstellar Medium

The shocked interstellar medium around IC443 produces strong X-ray emission in the soft energy band (E&lt;1.5 keV). We present an analysis of such emission as observed with the EPIC MOS cameras on board the XMM-Newotn observatory, with the purpose to find clear signatures of the interactions with the interstellar medium (ISM) in the X-ray band, which may complement results obtained in other wavelenghts. We found that the giant molecular cloud mapped in CO emission is located in the foreground and gives an evident signature in the absorption of X-rays. This cloud may have a torus shape and the part of torus interacting with the IC443 shock gives rise to 2MASS-K emission in the southeast. The…

Weak Flares on M-Dwarfs

We have investigated the physics of flares in M-dwarfs by means of optical/X-ray observations and modeling. The great efficiency of current optical spectrographs and detectors has allowed us to detect and analyze a great number of non white-light flares with intermediate spectral resolution and high temporal resolution. Although this kind of flares is the most typical on the Sun, few such events have been so far recorded on stars. We have obtained the physical parameters of the chromospheric flaring plasma (electron temperature, electron density, optical depth and temperature of the underlying source) by using a model that minimizes the difference between the observed Balmer decrements and …

Impulsive coronal heating from large-scale magnetic rearrangements: from IRIS to SDO/AIA

The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) has observed bright spots at the transition region footpoints associated with heating in the overlying loops, as observed by coronal imagers. Some of these brightenings show significant blueshifts in the Si iv line at 1402.77 A (logT[K] = 4.9). Such blueshifts cannot be reproduced by coronal loop models assuming heating by thermal conduction only, but are consistent with electron beam heating, highlighting for the first time the possible importance of non-thermal electrons in the heating of non-flaring active regions. Here we report on the coronal counterparts of these brightenings observed in the hot channels of the Atmospheric Imaging Assem…

Tracing the ICME plasma with a MHD simulation

The determination of the chemical composition of interplanetary coronal mass ejection (ICME) plasma is an open issue. More specifically, it is not yet fully understood how remote sensing observations of the solar corona plasma during solar disturbances evolve into plasma properties measured in situ away from the Sun. The ambient conditions of the background interplanetary plasma are important for space weather because they influence the evolutions, arrival times, and geo-effectiveness of the disturbances. The Reverse In situ and MHD APproach (RIMAP) is a technique to reconstruct the heliosphere on the ecliptic plane (including the magnetic Parker spiral) directly from in situ measurements a…

Numerical Simulations and Diagnostics in Astrophysics: A few Magnetohydrodynamics Examples

We discuss some issues related to numerical simulations in Astrophysics and, in particular, to their use both as a theoretical tool and as a diagnostic tool, to gain insight into the physical phenomena at work. We make our point presenting some examples of Magneto-hydro-dynamic (MHD) simulations of astrophysical plasmas and illustrating their use. In particular we show the need for appropriate tools to interpret, visualize and present results in an adequate form, and the importance of spectral synthesis for a direct comparison with observations.

Using the transit of Venus to probe the upper planetary atmosphere

The atmosphere of a transiting planet shields the stellar radiation providing us with a powerful method to estimate its size and density. In particular, because of their high ionization energy, atoms with high atomic number (Z) absorb short-wavelength radiation in the upper atmosphere, undetectable with observations in visible light. One implication is that the planet should appear larger during a primary transit observed in high energy bands than in the optical band. The last Venus transit in 2012 offered a unique opportunity to study this effect. The transit has been monitored by solar space observations from Hinode and Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). We measure the radius of Venus duri…

The flaring and quiescent components of the solar corona

The solar corona is a template to understand stellar activity. The Sun is a moderately active star, and its corona differs from active stars: active stellar coronae have a double-peaked EM(T) with the hot peak at 8-20 MK, while the non flaring solar corona has one peak at 1-2 MK. We study the average contribution of flares to the solar EM(T) to investigate indirectly the hypothesis that the hot peak of the EM(T) of active stellar coronae is due to a large number of unresolved solar-like flares, and to infer properties on the flare distribution from nano- to macro-flares. We measure the disk-integrated time-averaged emission measure, EM_F(T), of an unbiased sample of solar flares analyzing u…

3D YSO accretion shock simulations: a study of the magnetic, chromospheric and stochastic flow effects

AbstractThe structure and dynamics of young stellar object (YSO) accretion shocks depend strongly on the local magnetic field strength and configuration, as well as on the radiative transfer effects responsible for the energy losses. We present the first 3D YSO shock simulations of the interior of the stream, assuming a uniform background magnetic field, a clumpy infalling gas, and an acoustic energy flux flowing at the base of the chromosphere. We study the dynamical evolution and the post-shock structure as a function of the plasma-beta (thermal pressure over magnetic pressure). We find that a strong magnetic field (~hundreds of Gauss) leads to the formation of fibrils in the shocked gas …

X-ray emission from dense plasma in classical T Tauri stars: hydrodynamic modeling of the accretion shock

Context: High spectral resolution X-ray observations of classical T Tauri stars (CTTSs) demonstrate the presence of plasma at temperature T~2-3×10^6 K and density n_e~10^11-10^13 cm^-3, which are unobserved in non-accreting stars. Stationary models suggest that this emission is due to shock-heated accreting material, but do not allow us to analyze the stability of the material and its position in the stellar atmosphere. Aims: We investigate the dynamics and stability of shock-heated accreting material in classical T Tauri stars and the role of the stellar chromosphere in determining the position and thickness of the shocked region. Methods: We perform one-dimensional hydrodynamic simulation…

X-ray and optical bursts and flares in YSOs: results from a 5-day XMM-Newton monitoring campaign of L1551

We present the results of a five-day monitoring campaign with XMM-Newton of six X-ray bright young stellar objects (YSOs) in the star-forming complex L1551 in Taurus. All stars present significant variability on the five-day time scale. Modulation of the light curve on time scales comparable with the star's rotational period appeared to be present in the case of one weak-lined T Tauri star. Significant spectral variations between the 2000 and the 2004 observations were detected in the (unresolved) classical T Tauri binary system XZ Tau: a hot plasma component which was present in the X-ray spectrum in 2000 had significantly weakened in 2004. As XZ Tau N was undergoing a strong optical outbu…

Simultaneous Kepler/K2 and XMM-Newton observations of superflares in the Pleiades

Flares are powerful events ignited by a sudden release of magnetic energy. With the aim of studying flares in the 125-Myr-old stars in the Pleiades observed simultaneously in optical and X-ray light, we obtained new XMM-Newton observations of this cluster during the observations of Kepler K2 Campaign 4. Our objective is to characterize the most powerful flares observed in both bands and to constrain the energy released in the optical and X-ray, the geometry of the loops, and their time evolution. We aim to compare our results to existing studies of flares occurring in the Sun and stars at different ages. We selected bright X-ray/optical flares occurred in 12 known members of the Pleiades fr…

X-ray flare modeling in the single giant HR 9024

We analyze a Chandra-HETGS observation of the single G-type giant HR 9024. The high flux allows us to examine spectral line and continuum diagnostics at high temporal resolution, to derive plasma parameters (thermal distribution, abundances, temperature, ...). A time-dependent 1D hydrodynamic loop model with semi-length 10$^{12}$cm ($\sim R_{\star}$), and impulsive footpoint heating triggering the flare, satisfactorily reproduces the observed evolution of temperature and emission measure, derived from the analysis of the strong continuum emission. The observed characteristics of the flare appear to be common features in very large flares in active stars (also pre-main sequence stars), possi…

Post-flare Ultraviolet Light Curves Explained with Thermal Instability of Loop Plasma

In the present work, we study the C8 flare that occurred on 2000 September 26 at 19:49 UT and observed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory/Solar Ultraviolet Measurement of Emitted Radiation spectrometer from the beginning of the impulsive phase to well beyond the disappearance in the X-rays. The emission first decayed progressively through equilibrium states until the plasma reached 2-3 MK. Then, a series of cooler lines, i.e., Ca X, Ca VII, Ne VI, O IV, and Si III (formed in the temperature range log T = 4.3-6.3 under equilibrium conditions), are emitted at the same time and all evolve in a similar way. Here, we show that the simultaneous emission of lines with such a different forma…

More on the determination of the coronal heating function from Yohkoh data

Two recent works have analyzed a solar large and steady coronal loop observed with Yohkoh/SXT in two filter passbands to infer the distribution of the heating along it. Priest et al. (2000) modelled the distribution of the temperature obtained from filter ratio method with an analytical approach, and concluded that the heating was uniform along the loop. Aschwanden (2001) found that a uniform heating led to an unreasonably large plasma column depth along the line of sight, and, using a two component loop model, that a footpoint-heated model loop (with a minor cool component) yields more acceptable physical solutions. We revisit the analysis of the same loop system, considering conventional …

On the Origin of Asymmetries in Bilateral Supernova Remnants

AIMS: We investigate whether the morphology of bilateral supernova remnants (BSNRs) observed in the radio band is determined mainly either by a non-uniform interstellar medium (ISM) or by a non-uniform ambient magnetic field. METHODS: We perform 3-D MHD simulations of a spherical SNR shock propagating through a magnetized ISM. Two cases of shock propagation are considered: 1) through a gradient of ambient density with a uniform ambient magnetic field; 2) through a homogeneous medium with a gradient of ambient magnetic field strength. From the simulations, we synthesize the synchrotron radio emission, making different assumptions about the details of acceleration and injection of relativisti…

The Sun as an X‐Ray Star. IV. The Contribution of Different Regions of the Corona to Its X‐Ray Spectrum

We study X-ray-synthesized spectra of solar regions as templates to interpret analogous stellar spectra. We define three classes of coronal structures of different brightness, low (background quiet corona), medium (active regions), and high (active region cores), and determine their contribution to the solar X-ray emission measure versus temperature, EM(T), luminosity, and spectrum. This study defines the extent of the solar analogy quantitatively and accurately. To this end, we have selected a large sample of full-disk Yohkoh soft X-ray telescope observations taken between the maximum and the minimum of solar cycle 22, obtaining the contribution of each class to the whole Sun's EM(T). From…

Chandra study of the eclipsing M dwarf binary, YY Gem

The eclipsing M dwarf binary system, YY Gem, was observed using Chandra covering 140 ks (2Prot) in total, split into two even exposures separated by 0.76 d (0.94 Prot). The system was extremely active: three energetic flares were observed over the course of these observations. The flaring and non-flaring states of the system are analysed in this paper. The activity level increased between the first and second observations even during the quiescent (non-flaring) phases. An analysis of the dynamics of the X-ray-emitting plasma suggests that both components are significantly active. Contemporaneous Hα spectra also suggest that both components show similar levels of activity. The primary star i…

X-ray flares on the UV Ceti-type star CC Eridani: a "peculiar" time-evolution of spectral parameters

Context: Weak flares are supposed to be an important heating agent of the outer layers of stellar atmospheres. However, due to instrumental limitations, only large X-ray flares have been studied in detail until now. Aims: We used an XMM-Newton observation of the very active BY-Dra type binary star CC Eri in order to investigate the properties of two flares that are weaker than those typically studied in the literature. Methods: We performed time-resolved spectroscopy of the data taken with the EPIC-PN CCD camera. A multi-temperature model was used to fit the spectra. We inferred the size of the flaring loops using the density-temperature diagram. The loop scaling laws were applied for deriv…

Calibration of the SphinX experiment at the XACT facility in Palermo

Three of the four detectors of the SphinX experiment to be flown on the Russian mission Coronas-Photon have been measured at the XACT Facility of the Palermo Observatory at several wavelengths in the soft X-ray band. We describe the instrumental set-up and report some measurements. The analysis work to obtain the final calibration is still in progress.

Hydrodynamic modelling of ejecta shrapnel in the Vela supernova remnant

Many supernova remnants (SNRs) are characterized by a knotty ejecta structure. The Vela SNR is an excellent example of remnant in which detached clumps of ejecta are visible as X-ray emitting bullets that have been observed and studied in great detail. We aim at modelling the evolution of ejecta shrapnel in the Vela SNR, investigating the role of their initial parameters (position and density) and addressing the effects of thermal conduction and radiative losses. We performed a set of 2-D hydrodynamic simulations describing the evolution of a density inhomogeneity in the ejecta profile. We explored different initial setups. We found that the final position of the shrapnel is very sensitive …

Connecting Solar Orbiter remote-sensing observations and Parker Solar Probe in situ measurements with a numerical MHD reconstruction of the Parker spiral

As a key feature, NASA's Parker Solar Probe (PSP) and ESA-NASA's Solar Orbiter (SO) missions cooperate to trace solar wind and transients from their sources on the Sun to the inner interplanetary space. The goal of this work is to accurately reconstruct the interplanetary Parker spiral and the connection between coronal features observed remotely by the Metis coronagraph on-board SO and those detected in situ by PSP at the time of the first PSP-SO quadrature of January 2021. We use the Reverse In-situ and MHD Approach (RIMAP), a hybrid analytical-numerical method performing data-driven reconstructions of the Parker spiral. RIMAP solves the MHD equations on the equatorial plane with the PLUT…

UV And X-Ray Emission from Impacts of Fragmented Accretion Streams on Classical T Tauri Stars

According to the magnetoshperic accretion scenario, during their evo- lution, Classical T Tauri stars accrete material from their circumstellar disk. The accretion process is regulated by the stellar magnetic eld and produces hot and dense post-shocks on the stellar surface as a result of impacts of the downfalling material. The impact regions are expected to strongly radiate in UV and X-rays. Several lines of evidence support the magnetospheric accretion scenario, especially in optical and infrared bands. However several points still remain unclear as, for instance,where the complex-pro le UV lines originate, or whether and how UV and X-ray emission is produced in the same shock region. Th…

New constraints on chemical abundances of the shocked plasma in the supernova remnant IC443

Methods of Analyzing Temperatures in Post-Flare Loops using the XRT on Hinode

Thermal structure of a hot non-flaring corona from Hinode/EIS

In previous studies a very hot plasma component has been diagnosed in solar active regions through the images in three different narrow-band channels of SDO/AIA. This diagnostic from EUV imaging data has also been supported by the matching morphology of the emission in the hot Ca XVII line, as observed with Hinode/EIS. This evidence is debated because of unknown distribution of the emission measure along the line of sight. Here we investigate in detail the thermal distribution of one of such regions using EUV spectroscopic data. In an active region observed with SDO/AIA, Hinode/EIS and XRT, we select a subregion with a very hot plasma component and another cooler one for comparison. The ave…

Flaring Activity in Accretion Flows of Young Stellar Objects

X-ray observations have shown extensive flaring activity in young stellar associations such as the Orion nebula. Observed flares are often very long and intense, and have been associated to very long magnetic loops, which may connect the stellar surface to the circumstellar disk. As such, these loops are candidate to be also the channel of star accretion from the disk, and one then wonders whether they flare during accretion flows. As a first attack to this question we have modelled in detail flares inside long coronal loops containing plasma at high density, comparable to that presumed for accretion flows. Preliminary results show that such flares would decay on time scales smaller than th…

Bright X-Ray Flares in Orion Young Stars from COUP: Evidence for Star-Disk Magnetic Fields?

We have analyzed a number of intense X-ray flares observed in the Chandra Orion Ultradeep Project (COUP), a 13 days observation of the Orion Nebula Cluster (ONC). Analysis of the flare decay allows to determine the size, peak density and magnetic field of the flaring structure. A total of 32 events (the most powerful 1% of COUP flares), have sufficient statistics for the analysis. A broad range of decay times (from 10 to 400 ks) are present in the sample. Peak flare temperatures are often very high, with half of the flares in the sample showing temperatures in excess of 100 MK. Significant sustained heating is present in the majority of the flares. The magnetic structures which are found, a…

The importance of magnetic-field-oriented thermal conduction in the interaction of SNR shocks with interstellar clouds

We explore the importance of magnetic-field-oriented thermal conduction in the interaction of supernova remnant (SNR) shocks with radiative gas clouds and in determining the mass and energy exchange between the clouds and the hot surrounding medium. We perform 2.5D MHD simulations of a shock impacting on an isolated gas cloud, including anisotropic thermal conduction and radiative cooling; we consider the representative case of a Mach 50 shock impacting on a cloud ten-fold denser than the ambient medium. We consider different configurations of the ambient magnetic field and compare MHD models with or without the thermal conduction. The efficiency of the thermal conduction in the presence of…

X-ray emitting MHD accretion shocks in classical T Tauri stars. Case for moderate to high plasma-beta values

AIMS. We investigate the stability and dynamics of accretion shocks in CTTSs, considering the case of beta &gt;= 1 in the post-shock region. In these cases the 1D approximation is not valid and a multi-dimensional MHD approach is necessary. METHODS. We model an accretion stream propagating through the atmosphere of a CTTS and impacting onto its chromosphere, by performing 2D axisymmetric MHD simulations. The model takes into account the stellar magnetic field, the gravity, the radiative cooling, and the thermal conduction (including the effects of heat flux saturation). RESULTS. The dynamics and stability of the accretion shock strongly depends on the plasma beta. In the case of shocks with…

Acoustic Wave Properties in Footpoints of Coronal Loops in 3D MHD Simulations

Acoustic waves excited in the photosphere and below might play an integral part in the heating of the solar chromosphere and corona. However, it is yet not fully clear how much of the initially acoustic wave flux reaches the corona and in what form. We investigate the wave propagation, damping, transmission, and conversion in the lower layers of the solar atmosphere using 3D numerical MHD simulations. A model of a gravitationally stratified expanding straight coronal loop, stretching from photosphere to photosphere, is perturbed at one footpoint by an acoustic driver with a period of 370 seconds. For this period acoustic cutoff regions are present below the transition region (TR). About 2% …

Asymmetric Twisting of Coronal Loops

The bright solar corona entirely consists of closed magnetic loops rooted in the photosphere. Photospheric motions are important drivers of magnetic stressing, which eventually leads to energy release into heat. These motions are chaotic and obviously different from one footpoint to the other, and in fact, there is strong evidence that loops are finely stranded. One may also expect strong transient variations along the field lines, but at a glance, coronal loops ever appear more or less uniformly bright from one footpoint to the other. We aim to understand how much coronal loops can preserve their own symmetry against asymmetric boundary motions that are expected to occur at loop footpoints…

XMM-Newton observations of the supernova remnant IC 443: II. evidence of stellar ejecta in the inner regions

We investigate the spatial distribution of the physical and chemical properties of the hot X-ray emitting plasma of the supernova remnant IC 443, in order to get important constraints on its ionization stage, on the progenitor supernova explosion, on the age of the remnant, and its physical association with a close pulsar wind nebula. The hard X-ray thermal emission (1.4-5.0 keV) of IC 443 displays a centrally-peaked morphology, its brightness peaks being associated with hot (kT&gt;1 keV) X-ray emitting plasma. A ring-shaped structure, characterized by high values of equivalent widths and median photon energy, encloses the PWN. Its hard X-ray emission is spectrally characterized by a collis…

Slow-Mode Magnetoacoustic Waves in Coronal Loops

Rapidly decaying long-period oscillations often occur in hot coronal loops of active regions associated with small (or micro-) flares. This kind of wave activity was first discovered with the SOHO/SUMER spectrometer from Doppler velocity measurements of hot emission lines, thus also often called "SUMER" oscillations. They were mainly interpreted as global (or fundamental mode) standing slow magnetoacoustic waves. In addition, increasing evidence has suggested that the decaying harmonic type of pulsations detected in light curves of solar and stellar flares are likely caused by standing slow-mode waves. The study of slow magnetoacoustic waves in coronal loops has become a topic of particular…

Physical and Chemical Inhomogeneities Inside the Vela SNR Shell: Indications of Ejecta Shrapnels

We present the results of the combined analysis of three XMM-Newton EPIC observations of the northern rim of the Vela SNR. The three pointings cover an area of ~10 pc^2 (at 250 pc) behind the main shock front and we aim at studying with high resolution the spatial distribution of the physical and chemical properties of the X-ray emitting plasma on this large scale. We produce count-rate images and equivalent width maps of the Ne IX and Mg XI emission blends. We also perform a spatially resolved spectral analysis of a set of physically homogeneous regions. We reveal physical and chemical inhomogeneities in the X-ray emitting plasma. In particular, we find large variations of the O, Ne, Mg, a…

The complex phenomena of young stellar objects revealed by their X‐ray variability

Crushing of interstellar gas clouds in supernova remnants II. X-ray emission

AIMS. We study and discuss the time-dependent X-ray emission predicted by hydrodynamic modeling of the interaction of a SNR shock wave with an interstellar gas cloud. The scope includes: 1) to study the correspondence between modeled and X-ray emitting structures, 2) to explore two different physical regimes in which either thermal conduction or radiative cooling plays a dominant role, and 3) to investigate the effects of the physical processes at work on the emission of the shocked cloud in the two different regimes. METHODS. We use a detailed hydrodynamic model, including thermal conduction and radiation, and explore two cases characterized by different Mach numbers of the primary shock: …

Mass Accretion Processes in Young Stellar Objects: Role of Intense Flaring Activity

According to the magnetospheric accretion scenario, young low-mass stars are surrounded by circumstellar disks which they interact with through accretion of mass. The accretion builds up the star to its final mass and is also believed to power the mass outflows, which may in turn have a significant role in removing the excess angular momentum from the star-disk system. Although the process of mass accretion is a critical aspect of star formation, some of its mechanisms are still to be fully understood. On the other hand, strong flaring activity is a common feature of young stellar objects (YSOs). In the Sun, such events give rise to perturbations of the interplanetary medium. Similar but mo…

Impacts of fragmented accretion streams onto Classical T Tauri Stars: UV and X-ray emission lines

Context. The accretion process in Classical T Tauri Stars (CTTSs) can be studied through the analysis of some UV and X-ray emission lines which trace hot gas flows and act as diagnostics of the post-shock downfalling plasma. In the UV band, where higher spectral resolution is available, these lines are characterized by rather complex profiles whose origin is still not clear. Aims. We investigate the origin of UV and X-ray emission at impact regions of density structured (fragmented) accretion streams.We study if and how the stream fragmentation and the resulting structure of the post-shock region determine the observed profiles of UV and X-ray emission lines. Methods. We model the impact of…

Fe Kα and Hydrodynamic Loop Model Diagnostics for a Large Flare on II Pegasi

The observation by the Swift X-ray Telescope of the Fe K alpha_1, alpha_2 doublet during a large flare on the RS CVn binary system II Peg represents one of only two firm detections to date of photospheric Fe K alpha from a star other than our Sun. We present models of the Fe K alpha equivalent widths reported in the literature for the II Peg observations and show that they are most probably due to fluorescence following inner shell photoionisation of quasi-neutral Fe by the flare X-rays. Our models constrain the maximum height of flare the to 0.15 R_* assuming solar abundances for the photospheric material, and 0.1 R_* and 0.06 R_* assuming depleted photospheric abundances ([M/H]=-0.2 and […

3D numerical modeling of YSO accretion shocks

International audience; The dynamics of YSO accretion shocks is determined by radiative processes as well as the strength and structure of the magnetic field. A quasi-periodic emission signature is theoretically expected to be observed, but observations do not confirm any such pattern. In this work, we assume a uniform background field, in the regime of optically thin energy losses, and we study the multi-dimensional shock evolution in the presence of perturbations, i.e. clumps in the stream and an acoustic energy flux flowing at the base of the chromosphere. We perform 3D MHD simulations using the PLUTO code, modeling locally the impact of the infalling gas onto the chromosphere. We find t…

Monte Carlo Markov Chain DEM reconstruction of isothermal plasmas

In this paper, we carry out tests on the Monte Carlo Markov Chain (MCMC) technique with the aim of determining: 1) its ability to retrieve isothermal plasmas from a set of spectral line intensities, with and without random noise; 2) to what extent can it discriminate between an isothermal solution and a narrow multithermal distribution; and 3) how well it can detect multiple isothermal components along the line of sight. We also test the effects of 4) atomic data uncertainties on the results, and 5) the number of ions whose lines are available for the DEM reconstruction. We find that the MCMC technique is unable to retrieve isothermal plasmas to better than Delta log T = 0.05. Also, the DEM…

Coronal fuzziness modelled with pulse-heated multistranded loop systems

Coronal active regions are observed to get fuzzier and fuzzier (i.e. more and more confused and uniform) in harder and harder energy bands or lines. We explain this evidence as due to the fine multi-temperature structure of coronal loops. To this end, we model bundles of loops made of thin strands, each heated by short and intense heat pulses. For simplicity, we assume that the heat pulses are all equal and triggered only once in each strand at a random time. The pulse intensity and cadence are selected so as to have steady active region loops ($\sim 3$ MK), on the average. We compute the evolution of the confined heated plasma with a hydrodynamic loop model. We then compute the emission al…

3-Dimensional Hydrodynamic Interaction of a Supernova Remnant Shock with an Isolated Cloud

We report on a computational key-project in astrophysics. The project is aimed at studying the interaction of a supernova shock wave with interstellar clouds. We describe the numerical code used, namely FLASH, a multi-dimensional astrophysical hydrodynamics code for parallel computers developed at the FLASH center (The University of Chicago); our team collaborates with, and contributes to, the FLASH project. We discuss the resources required for the whole project, the I/O management, the performance and the scalability of the code on IBM/Sp4 at CINECA. Finally, we present a selection of results. © 2005 IEEE.

YSO accretion shocks: magnetic, chromospheric or stochastic flow effects can suppress fluctuations of X-ray emission

Context. Theoretical arguments and numerical simulations of radiative shocks produced by the impact of the accreting gas onto young stars predict quasi-periodic oscillations in the emitted radiation. However, observational data do not show evidence of such periodicity. Aims. We investigate whether physically plausible perturbations in the accretion column or in the chromosphere could disrupt the shock structure influencing the observability of the oscillatory behavior. Methods. We performed local 2D magneto-hydrodynamical simulations of an accretion shock impacting a chromosphere, taking optically thin radiation losses and thermal conduction into account. We investigated the effects of seve…

Simultaneous Kepler/K2 and XMM‐Newton observations of superflares in the Pleiades

Proceeding of a contributed talk given at the meeting: "TIME-DOMAIN ASTRONOMY: A HIGH ENERGY VIEW" held at ESAC, Madrid, 13 - 15 JUNE 2018 Together with coronal mass ejection, flares are the most energetic stellar magnetic events, ignited by a sudden release of magnetic energy, which triggers a cascade of interconnected phenomena, each resulting in emission in different bands. For this reason, flares are intrinsic multiwavelength phenomena. In particular, optical and soft X-ray emission probes two different events occurring during flares: the heating of plasma in the upper photosphere at the footpoints of the magnetic loops and the heating and cooling of the plasma confined in the loops in …

ADAHELI+: Exploring the fast, dynamic Sun in the X-ray, optical, and near-infrared

Advanced Astronomy for Heliophysics Plus (ADAHELI+) is a project concept for a small solar and space weather mission with a budget compatible with an European Space Agency (ESA) S-class mission, including launch, and a fast development cycle. ADAHELI+ was submitted to the European Space Agency by a European-wide consortium of solar physics research institutes in response to the "Call for a small mission opportunity for a launch in 2017," of March 9, 2012. The ADAHELI+ project builds on the heritage of the former ADAHELI mission, which had successfully completed its phase-A study under the Italian Space Agency 2007 Small Mission Programme, thus proving the soundness and feasibility of its in…

On the observability of T Tauri accretion shocks in the X-ray band

Context. High resolution X-ray observations of classical T Tauri stars (CTTSs) show a soft X-ray excess due to high density plasma (n_e=10^11-10^13 cm^-3). This emission has been attributed to shock-heated accreting material impacting onto the stellar surface. Aims. We investigate the observability of the shock-heated accreting material in the X-ray band as a function of the accretion stream properties (velocity, density, and metal abundance) in the case of plasma-beta&lt;&lt;1 in the post-shock zone. Methods. We use a 1-D hydrodynamic model describing the impact of an accretion stream onto the chromosphere, including the effects of radiative cooling, gravity and thermal conduction. We expl…

Diagnostics of Coronal Loops from Multi-Band Observations

Large-amplitude Quasiperiodic Pulsations as Evidence of Impulsive Heating in Hot Transient Loop Systems Detected in the EUV with SDO/AIA

Short heat pulses can trigger plasma pressure fronts inside closed magnetic tubes in the corona. The alternation of condensations and rarefactions from the pressure modes drive large-amplitude pulsations in the plasma emission. Here we show the detection of such pulsations along magnetic tubes that brighten transiently in the hot 94A EUV channel of SDO/AIA. The pulsations are consistent with those predicted by hydrodynamic loop modeling, and confirm pulsed heating in the loop system. The comparison of observations and model provides constraints on the heat deposition: a good agreement requires loop twisting and pulses deposited close to the footpoints with a duration of 0.5 min in one loop,…

Detailed diagnostics of an X-ray flare in the single giant HR 9024

We analyze a 96 ks Chandra/HETGS observation of the single G-type giant HR 9024. The high flux allows us to examine spectral line and continuum diagnostics at high temporal resolution, to derive plasma parameters. A time-dependent 1D hydrodynamic model of a loop with half-length $L = 5 \times 10^{11}$ cm ($\sim R_{\star}/2$), cross-section radius $r = 4.3 \times 10^{10}$ cm, with a heat pulse of 15 ks and $2 \times 10^{11}$~erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ deposited at the loop footpoints, satisfactorily reproduces the observed evolution of temperature and emission measure, derived from the analysis of the strong continuum emission. For the first time we can compare predictions from the hydrodynamic …

Modeling magnetohydrodynamics and non equilibrium SoHO/UVCS line emission of CME shocks

We provide a guideline to interpret the UVCS emission lines (in particular O VI and Si XII) during shock wave propagation in the outer solar corona. We use a numerical MHD model performing a set of simulations of shock waves generated in the corona and from the result we compute the plasma emission for the O VI and Si XII including the effects of NEI. We analyze the radiative and spectral properties of our model with the support of a detailed radiation model including Doppler dimming and an analytical model for shocks, and, finally, we synthesize the expected O VI 1032A line profile. We explain several spectral features of the observations like the absence of discontinuities in the O VI emi…

Probing the physics of the solar atmosphere with the Multi-slit Solar Explorer (MUSE): I. Coronal Heating

The Multi-slit Solar Explorer (MUSE) is a proposed NASA MIDEX mission, currently in Phase A, composed of a multi-slit EUV spectrograph (in three narrow spectral bands centered around 171A, 284A, and 108A) and an EUV context imager (in two narrow passbands around 195A and 304A). MUSE will provide unprecedented spectral and imaging diagnostics of the solar corona at high spatial (&lt;0.5 arcsec), and temporal resolution (down to ~0.5s) thanks to its innovative multi-slit design. By obtaining spectra in 4 bright EUV lines (Fe IX 171A , Fe XV 284A, Fe XIX-Fe XXI 108A) covering a wide range of transition region and coronal temperatures along 37 slits simultaneously, MUSE will for the first time …

MHD modeling of coronal loops: the transition region throat

The expansion of coronal loops in the transition region may considerably influence the diagnostics of the plasma emission measure. The cross sectional area of the loops is expected to depend on the temperature and pressure, and might be sensitive to the heating rate. The approach here is to study the area response to slow changes in the coronal heating rate, and check the current interpretation in terms of steady heating models. We study the area response with a time-dependent 2D MHD loop model, including the description of the expanding magnetic field, coronal heating and losses by thermal conduction and radiation from optically thin plasma. We run a simulation for a loop 50 Mm long and qu…

On the Coronal Temperature in Solar Microflares

We present a study of solar imaging and spectral observations of a microflare, focusing on the temperature diagnostics provided by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory, and the Extreme-Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on board Hinode. Our data analysis, in particular from the emission in the 131 and 94 Å channels, indicates that the heated plasma reaches temperatures of ≿10 MK, at odds with a previous analysis of the same event, and we discuss the reason for the discrepancy. A particularly interesting aspect is the likely presence of the Fe XXIII 263.76 Å line, though weak, in EIS spectra in the early phases of the event, supporting the presen…

Magnetic shuffling of coronal downdrafts

Channelled fragmented downflows are ubiquitous in magnetized atmospheres, and have been recently addressed from an observation after a solar eruption. We study the possible back-effect of the magnetic field on the propagation of confined flows. We compare two 3D MHD simulations of dense supersonic plasma blobs downfalling along a coronal magnetic flux tube. In one, the blobs move strictly along the field lines; in the other, the initial velocity of the blobs is not perfectly aligned to the magnetic field and the field is weaker. The aligned blobs remain compact while flowing along the tube, with the generated shocks. The misaligned blobs are disrupted and merged by the chaotic shuffling of …

Crushing of Interstellar Gas Clouds in Supernova Remnants: the Role of Thermal Conduction and Radiative Losses

We model hydrodynamic interactions of an old supernova remnant shock wave with a small interstellar gas cloud, taking into account the effects of thermal conduction and radiative losses. In particular, we consider a representative case of a Mach 30 shock impacting on an isolated cloud with density contrast χ = 10 with respect to the ambient medium. Thermal conduction appears to be effective in suppressing the Kelvin-Helmholtz and Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities which would develop at the cloud boundaries. We demonstrate that the radiative losses play a crucial role in the dynamics of the shock-cloud interaction, dominating evolution of the shocked cloud medium.

X-Raying the Dark Side of Venus - Scatter from Venus Magnetotail?

This work analyzes the X-ray, EUV and UV emission apparently coming from the Earth-facing (dark) side of Venus as observed with Hinode/XRT and SDO/AIA during a transit across the solar disk occurred in 2012. We have measured significant X-Ray, EUV and UV flux from Venus dark side. As a check we have also analyzed a Mercury transit across the solar disk, observed with Hinode/XRT in 2006. We have used the latest version of the Hinode/XRT Point Spread Function (PSF) to deconvolve Venus and Mercury X-ray images, in order to remove possible instrumental scattering. Even after deconvolution, the flux from Venus shadow remains significant while in the case of Mercury it becomes negligible. Since s…

Exploring the Solar Wind from Its Source on the Corona into the Inner Heliosphere during the First Solar Orbiter-Parker Solar Probe Quadrature

This Letter addresses the first Solar Orbiter (SO) -- Parker Solar Probe (PSP) quadrature, occurring on January 18, 2021, to investigate the evolution of solar wind from the extended corona to the inner heliosphere. Assuming ballistic propagation, the same plasma volume observed remotely in corona at altitudes between 3.5 and 6.3 solar radii above the solar limb with the Metis coronagraph on SO can be tracked to PSP, orbiting at 0.1 au, thus allowing the local properties of the solar wind to be linked to the coronal source region from where it originated. Thanks to the close approach of PSP to the Sun and the simultaneous Metis observation of the solar corona, the flow-aligned magnetic fiel…