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Register a new userElectron acceleration by cascading reconnection in the solar corona I Magnetic gradient and curvature effects
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Aims: We investigate the electron acceleration in convective electric fields of cascading magnetic reconnection in a flaring solar corona and show the resulting hard X-ray (HXR) radiation spectra caused by Bremsstrahlung for the coronal source. Methods: We perform test particle calculation of electron motions in the framework of a guiding center approximation. The electromagnetic fields and their derivatives along electron trajectories are obtained by linearly interpolating the results of high-resolution adaptive mesh refinement (AMR) MHD simulations of cascading magnetic reconnection. Hard X-ray (HXR) spectra are calculated using an optically thin Bremsstrahlung model. Results: Magnetic gradients and curvatures in cascading reconnection current sheet accelerate electrons: trapped in magnetic islands, precipitating to the chromosphere and ejected into the interplanetary space. The final location of an electron is determined by its initial position, pitch angle and velocity. These initial conditions also influence electron acceleration efficiency. Most of electrons have enhanced perpendicular energy. Trapped electrons are considered to cause the observed bright spots along coronal mass ejection CME-trailing current sheets as well as the flare loop-top HXR emissions.
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Magnetic reconnection, a fundamentally important process in many aspects of astrophysics, is believed to be initiated by the tearing instability of an electric current sheet, a region where magnetic field abruptly changes direction and electric currents build up. Recent studies have suggested that the amount of magnetic shear in these structures is a critical parameter for the switch-on nature of magnetic reconnection in the solar atmosphere, at fluid spatial scales much larger than kinetic scales. We present results of simulations of reconnection in 3D current sheets with conditions appropriate to the solar corona. Using high-fidelity simulations, we follow the evolution of the linear and non-linear 3D tearing instability, leading to reconnection. We find that, depending on the parameter space, magnetic shear can play a vital role in the onset of significant energy release and heating via non-linear tearing. Two regimes in our study exist, dependent on whether the current sheet is longer or shorter than the wavelength of the fastest growing parallel mode (in the corresponding infinite system), thus determining whether sub-harmonics are present in the actual system. In one regime, where the fastest growing parallel mode has sub-harmonics, the non-linear interaction of these sub-harmonics and the coalescence of 3D plasmoids dominates the non-linear evolution, with magnetic shear playing only a weak role in the amount of energy released. In the second regime, where the fastest growing parallel mode has no-sub-harmonics, then only strongly sheared current sheets, where oblique mode are strong enough to compete with the dominant parallel mode, show any significant energy release. We expect both regimes to exist on the Sun, and so our results have important consequences for the the question of reconnection onset in different solar physics applications.
Particle acceleration is one of the most significant features that are ubiquitous among space and cosmic plasmas. It is most prominent during flares in the case of the Sun, with which huge amount of electromagnetic radiation and high-energy particles are expelled into the interplanetary space through acceleration of plasma particles in the corona. Though it has been well understood that energies of flares are supplied by the mechanism called magnetic reconnection based on the observations in X-rays and EUV with space telescopes, where and how in the flaring magnetic field plasmas are accelerated has remained unknown due to the low plasma density in the flaring corona. We here report the first observational identification of the energetic non-thermal electrons around the point of the ongoing magnetic reconnection (X-point); with the location of the X-point identified by soft X-ray imagery and the localized presence of non-thermal electrons identified from imaging-spectroscopic data at two microwave frequencies. Considering the existence of the reconnection outflows that carries both plasma particles and magnetic fields out from the X-point, our identified non-thermal microwave emissions around the X-point indicate that the electrons are accelerated around the reconnection X-point. Additionally, the plasma around the X-point was also thermally heated up to 10 MK. The estimated reconnection rate of this event is ~0.017.
The solar corona is frequently disrupted by coronal mass ejections (CMEs), whose core structure is believed to be a flux rope made of helical magnetic field. This has become a standard picture although it remains elusive how the flux rope forms and evolves toward eruption. While 1/3 of the ejecta passing through spacecrafts demonstrate a flux-rope structure, the rest have complex magnetic fields. Are they originating from a coherent flux rope, too? Here we investigate the source region of a complex ejecta, focusing on a flare precursor with definitive signatures of magnetic reconnection, i.e., nonthermal electrons, flaring plasma, and bi-directional outflowing blobs. Aided by nonlinear force-free field modeling, we conclude that the reconnection occurs within a system of multiple braided flux ropes with different degree of coherency. The observation signifies the importance of internal structure and dynamics in understanding CMEs and in predicting their impacts on Earth.
Globally-propagating shocks in the solar corona have long been studied to quantify their involvement in the acceleration of energetic particles. However, this work has tended to focus on large events associated with strong solar flares and fast coronal mass ejections (CMEs), where the waves are sufficiently fast to easily accelerate particles to high energies. Here we present observations of particle acceleration associated with a global wave event which occurred on 1 October 2011. Using differential emission measure analysis, the global shock wave was found to be incredibly weak, with an Alfven Mach number of ~1.008-1.013. Despite this, spatially-resolved type III radio emission was observed by the Nanc{c}ay RadioHeliograph at distinct locations near the shock front, suggesting localised acceleration of energetic electrons. Further investigation using a magnetic field extrapolation identified a fan structure beneath a magnetic null located above the source active region, with the erupting CME contained within this topological feature. We propose that a reconfiguration of the coronal magnetic field driven by the erupting CME enabled the weak shock to accelerate particles along field lines initially contained within the fan and subsequently opened into the heliosphere, producing the observed type III emission. These results suggest that even weak global shocks in the solar corona can accelerate energetic particles via reconfiguration of the surrounding magnetic field.
Using multiwavelength imaging observations from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) on 03 May 2012, we present a novel physical scenario for the formation of a temporary X-point in the solar corona, where plasma dynamics is forced externally by a moving prominence. Natural diffusion was not predominant, however, a prominence driven inflow occurred firstly, forming a thin current sheet and thereafter enabling a forced magnetic reconnection at a considerably high rate. Observations in relation to the numerical model reveal that forced reconnection may rapidly and efficiently occur at higher rates in the solar corona. This physical process may also heat the corona locally even without establishing a significant and self-consistent diffusion region. Using a parametric numerical study, we demonstrate that the implementation of the external driver increases the rate of the reconnection even when the resistivity required for creating normal diffusion region decreases at the X-point. We conjecture that the appropriate external forcing can bring the oppositely directed field lines into the temporarily created diffusion region firstly via the plasma inflows as seen in the observations. The reconnection and related plasma outflows may occur thereafter at considerably larger rates.
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