5,824 research outputs found
Impulsive Heating of Solar Flare Ribbons Above 10 MK
The chromospheric response to the input of flare energy is marked by extended
extreme ultraviolet (EUV) ribbons and hard X-ray (HXR) footpoints. These are
usually explained as the result of heating and bremsstrahlung emission from
accelerated electrons colliding in the dense chromospheric plasma. We present
evidence of impulsive heating of flare ribbons above 10 MK in a two-ribbon
flare. We analyse the impulsive phase of SOL2013-11-09T06:38, a C2.6 class
event using data from Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board of Solar
Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar
Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) to derive the temperature, emission measure and
differential emission measure of the flaring regions and investigate the
evolution of the plasma in the flaring ribbons. The ribbons were visible at all
SDO/AIA EUV/UV wavelengths, in particular, at 94 and 131 \AA\ filters,
sensitive to temperatures of 8 MK and 12 MK. Time evolution of the emission
measure of the plasma above 10 MK at the ribbons has a peak near the HXR peak
time. The presence of hot plasma in the lower atmosphere is further confirmed
by RHESSI imaging spectroscopy analysis, which shows resolved sources at 11-13
MK associated with at least one ribbon. We found that collisional beam heating
can only marginally explain the necessary power to heat the 10 MK plasma at the
ribbons.Comment: 21 pages, 15 figure
The spectral content of SDO/AIA 1600 and 1700 \AA\ filters from flare and plage observations
The strong enhancement of the ultraviolet emission during solar flares is
usually taken as an indication of plasma heating in the lower solar atmosphere
caused by the deposition of the energy released during these events. Images
taken with broadband ultraviolet filters by the {\em Transition Region and
Coronal Explorer} (TRACE) and {\em Atmospheric Imaging Assembly} (AIA 1600 and
1700~\AA) have revealed the morphology and evolution of flare ribbons in great
detail. However, the spectral content of these images is still largely unknown.
Without the knowledge of the spectral contribution to these UV filters, the use
of these rich imaging datasets is severely limited. Aiming to solve this issue,
we estimate the spectral contributions of the AIA UV flare and plage images
using high-resolution spectra in the range 1300 to 1900~\AA\ from the Skylab
NRL SO82B spectrograph. We find that the flare excess emission in AIA 1600~\AA\
is { dominated by} the \ion{C}{4} 1550~\AA\ doublet (26\%), \ion{Si}{1}
continua (20\%), with smaller contributions from many other chromospheric lines
such as \ion{C}{1} 1561 and 1656~\AA\ multiplets, \ion{He}{2} 1640~\AA,
\ion{Si}{2} 1526 and 1533~\AA. For the AIA 1700~\AA\ band, \ion{C}{1} 1656~\AA\
multiplet is the main contributor (38\%), followed by \ion{He}{2} 1640 (17\%),
and accompanied by a multitude of other, { weaker} chromospheric lines, with
minimal contribution from the continuum. Our results can be generalized to
state that the AIA UV flare excess emission is of chromospheric origin, while
plage emission is dominated by photospheric continuum emission in both
channels.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Skylab NRL SO82B data used in this
work available at http://dx.doi.org/10.5525/gla.researchdata.68
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