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Register a new userMeasurements of Absolute Abundances in Solar Flares
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Authors
Harry P. Warren
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We present measurements of elemental abundances in solar flares with the EUV Variability Experiment (EVE) on the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). EVE observes both high temperature Fe emission lines (Fe XV-Fe XXIV) and continuum emission from thermal bremsstrahlung that is proportional to the abundance of H. By comparing the relative intensities of line and continuum emission it is possible to determine the enrichment of the flare plasma relative to the composition of the photosphere. This is the first ionization potential or FIP bias ($f$). Since thermal bremsstrahlung at EUV wavelengths is relatively insensitive to the electron temperature, it is important to account for the distribution of electron temperatures in the emitting plasma. We accomplish this by using the observed spectra to infer the differential emission measure distribution and FIP bias simultaneously. In each of the 21 flares that we analyze we find that the observed composition is close to photospheric. The mean FIP bias in our sample is $f=1.27pm0.23$. This analysis suggests that the bulk of the plasma evaporated during a flare comes from deep in the chromosphere, below the region where elemental fractionation occurs.
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The emphasis of observational and theoretical flare studies in the last decade or two has been on the flare corona, and attention has shifted substantially away from the flares chromospheric aspects. However, although the pre-flare energy is stored in the corona, the radiative flare is primarily a chromospheric phenomenon, and its chromospheric emission presents a wealth of diagnostics for the thermal and non-thermal components of the flare. I will here review the chromospheric signatures of flare energy release and the problems thrown up by the application of these diagnostics in the context of the standard flare model. I will present some ideas about the transport of energy to the chromosphere by other means, and calculations of the electron acceleration that one might expect in one such model.
A white paper prepared for the Space Studies Board, National Academy of Sciences (USA), for its Decadal Survey of Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics), reviewing and encouraging studies of flare physics in the chromosphere.
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