Search results for "Flares"
showing 10 items of 36 documents
The Sun as a benchmark of flaring activity in stellar coronae
2009
The solar corona is a template to study and understand stellar activity. However the solar corona differs from that of active stars: the Sun has lower X‐ray luminosity, and on average cooler plasma temperatures. Active stellar coronae have a hot peak in their emission measure distribution, EM (T), at 8–20 MK, while the non‐flaring solar corona has a peak at 1–2 MK. In the solar corona significant amounts of plasma at temperature ∼10 MK are observed only during flares.To investigate what is the time‐averaged effect of solar flares we measure the disk‐integrated time‐averaged emission measure, EMF (T), of an unbiased sample of solar flares. To this aim we analyze uninterrupted GOES/XRS light …
Nonequilibrium of Ionization and the Detection of Hot Plasma in Nanoflare‐heated Coronal Loops
2008
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…
Coronal Magnetic Field Measurements Through Quasi-Transverse Propagation
2004
The QT-propagation of microwaves as a means to measure coronal magnetic fields and the inversion of circular polarization as an observational proof of the QT-propagation are discussed. The first part of the chapter briefly outlines the relevant geometry and mathematical relations. Then the state of the art in the coronal magnetography and some possibilities are demonstrated. We discuss use of the technique for coronal magnetography and give some estimates concerning the coronal magnetography with the forthcoming Frequency Agile Solar Radiotelescope.
Widespread Nanoflare Variability Detected with Hinode/X-Ray Telescope in a Solar Active Region
2011
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…
Magnetohydrodynamic simulations of the ejection of a magnetic flux rope
2013
Context. Coronal mass ejections (CME's) are one of the most violent phenomena found on the Sun. One model to explain their occurrence is the flux rope ejection model. In this model, magnetic flux ropes form slowly over time periods of days to weeks. They then lose equilibrium and are ejected from the solar corona over a few hours. The contrasting time scales of formation and ejection pose a serious problem for numerical simulations. Aims: We simulate the whole life span of a flux rope from slow formation to rapid ejection and investigate whether magnetic flux ropes formed from a continuous magnetic field distribution, during a quasi-static evolution, can erupt to produce a CME. Methods: To …
Plasma Diagnostics and Magnetic Complexity of a Post-Flare Active Region with Hinode/XRT: Spatial and Temporal Evolution
2012
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.
The Space Weather X-Ray spectrometer for the Helianthus sub-L1 mission with solar photonic propulsion
2022
Copyright 2022 Society of Photo‑Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). One print or electronic copy may be made for personal use only. Systematic reproduction and distribution, duplication of any material in this publication for a fee or for commercial purposes, and modification of the contents of the publication are prohibited. Helianthus is a phase A study of a space weather station with solar photonic propulsion. The scientific payload will be made of: an X-ray spectrometer to detect solar flares; SailCor, a coronagraph with a wide field of view; a plasma analyzer; a magnetometer. The maximum allowed mass for the entire scientific payload shall not exceed 5 kg. The two imaging devices…
Large Scale Properties of Coronal Heating along the Solar Cycle
2010
We discuss various studies of the global properties of coronal heating. Some of them find power laws tying the X-ray luminosity with the magnetic flux of individual structures, of the whole Sun, and of active solar-type stars. Others are based on methods to model the Sun as an X-ray star. We also briefly discuss solar-like active stars and how the Sun fits in the whole scenario. We use a new model, including all flares, of the Sun as an X-ray star to describe the evolution of the corona along the solar cycle and the implications on the heating of closed coronal structures. We point out that, as activity increases, more heating is released into the confined coronal plasma and such a heating …
Numerical Simulations of a Flux Rope Ejection
2015
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are the most violent phenomena observed on the Sun. One of the most successful models to explain CMEs is the flux rope ejection model, where a magnetic flux rope is expelled from the solar corona after a long phase along which the flux rope stays in equilibrium while magnetic energy is being accumulated. However, still many questions are outstanding on the detailed mechanism of the ejection and observations continuously provide new data to interpret and put in the context. Currently, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) are providing new insights into the early phase of CME evo…
A prospective new diagnostic technique for distinguishing eruptive and noneruptive active regions
2019
This research has received funding from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (UK) through the consolidated grant ST/N000609/1 and the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 647214). This work used the DiRAC@Durham facility managed by the Institute for Computational Cosmology on behalf of the STFC DiRAC HPC Facility (www.dirac.ac.uk). The equipment was funded by BEIS capital funding via STFC capital grants ST/P002293/1, ST/R002371/1, and ST/S002502/1, Durham University and STFC operations grant ST/R000832/1. DiRAC is part of the National e-Infrastructure. S.L.Y. would like to acknowledge STFC for sup…