Transition region and chromospheric signatures of impulsive heating events. II. Modeling

Reep, J. W., Warren, H. P., Crump, N. A. and Simões, P. J.A. (2016) Transition region and chromospheric signatures of impulsive heating events. II. Modeling. Astrophysical Journal, 827(2), 145. (doi: 10.3847/0004-637X/827/2/145)

Abstract

Results from the Solar Maximum Mission showed a close connection between the hard X-ray (HXR) and transition region (TR) emission in solar flares. Analogously, the modern combination of RHESSI and IRIS data can inform the details of heating processes in ways that were never before possible. We study a small event that was observed with RHESSI, IRIS, SDO, and Hinode, allowing us to strongly constrain the heating and hydrodynamical properties of the flare, with detailed observations presented in a previous paper. Long duration redshifts of TR lines observed in this event, as well as many other events, are fundamentally incompatible with chromospheric condensation on a single loop. We combine RHESSI and IRIS data to measure the energy partition among the many magnetic strands that comprise the flare. Using that observationally determined energy partition, we show that a proper multithreaded model can reproduce these redshifts in magnitude, duration, and line intensity, while simultaneously being well constrained by the observed density, temperature, and emission measure. We comment on the implications for both RHESSI and IRIS observations of flares in general, namely that: (1) a single loop model is inconsistent with long duration redshifts, among other observables; (2) the average time between energization of strands is less than 10 s, which implies that for a HXR burst lasting 10 minutes, there were at least 60 strands within a single IRIS pixel located on the flare ribbon; (3) the majority of these strands were explosively heated with an energy distribution well described by a power law of slope »-1.6; (4) the multi-stranded model reproduces the observed line profiles, peak temperatures, differential emission measure distributions, and densities.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Simoes, Dr Paulo
• Authors: Reep, J. W., Warren, H. P., Crump, N. A., and Simões, P. J.A.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
• Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• ISSN: 0004-637X
• ISSN (Online): 1538-4357
• Published Online: 22 August 2016
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2016 The American Astronomical Society
• First Published: First published in Astrophysical Journal 827(2): 145
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced in accordance with the publisher copyright policy