Charge-exchange limits on low-energy alpha-particle fluxes in solar flares

This paper reports on a search for flare emission via charge-exchange radiation in the wings of the Lyman-alpha line of He ii at 304 A, as originally suggested for hydrogen by Orrall and Zirker. Via this mechanism a primary alpha particle that penetrates into the neutral chromosphere can pick up an atomic electron and emit in the He ii bound-bound spectrum before it stops. The Extreme-ultraviolet Variability Experiment (EVE) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) gives us our first chance to search for this effect systematically. The Orrall-Zirker mechanism has great importance for flare physics because of the essential roles that particle acceleration plays; this mechanism is one of the few proposed that would allow remote sensing of primary accelerated particles below a few MeV/nucleon. We study ten events in total, including the gamma-ray events SOL2010-06-12 (M2.0) and SOL2011-02-24 (M3.5) (the latter a limb flare), seven X-class flares, and one prominent M-class event that produced solar energetic particles (SEPs). The absence of charge-exchange line wings may point to a need for more complete theoretical work. Some of the events do have broad-band signatures, which could correspond to continua from other origins, but these do not have the spectral signatures expected from the Orrall-Zirker mechanism.

X-Ray Searches for Solar Axions

Axions generated thermally in the solar core can convert nearly directly to X-rays as they pass through the solar atmosphere via interaction with the magnetic field. The result of this conversion process would be a diffuse centrally-concentrated source of few-keV X-rays at disk center; it would have a known dimension, of order 10% of the solar diameter, and a spectral distribution resembling the blackbody spectrum of the solar core. Its spatial structure in detail would depend on the distribution of mass and field in the solar atmosphere. The brightness of the source depends upon these factors as well as the unknown coupling constant and the unknown mass of the axion; this particle is hypothetical and no firm evidence for its existence has been found yet. We describe the solar magnetic environment as an axion/photon converter and discuss the upper limits obtained by existing and dedicated observations from three solar X-ray observatories: Yohkoh, RHESSI, and Hinode

Deducing Electron Properties From Hard X-Ray Observations

X-radiation from energetic electrons is the prime diagnostic of flare-accelerated electrons. The observed X-ray flux (and polarization state) is fundamentally a convolution of the cross-section for the hard X-ray emission process(es) in question with the electron distribution function, which is in turn a function of energy, direction, spatial location and time. To address the problems of particle propagation and acceleration one needs to infer as much information as possible on this electron distribution function, through a deconvolution of this fundamental relationship. This review presents recent progress toward this goal using spectroscopic, imaging and polarization measurements, primarily from the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI). Previous conclusions regarding the energy, angular (pitch angle) and spatial distributions of energetic electrons in solar flares are critically reviewed. We discuss the role and the observational evidence of several radiation processes: free-free electron-ion, free-free electron-electron, free-bound electron-ion bremsstrahlung, photoelectric absorption and Compton back-scatter (albedo), using both spectroscopic and imaging techniques. This unprecedented quality of data allows for the first time inference of the angular distributions of the X-ray-emitting electrons using albedo, improved model-independent inference of electron energy spectra and emission measures of thermal plasma. Moreover, imaging spectroscopy has revealed hitherto unknown details of solar flare morphology and detailed spectroscopy of coronal, footpoint and extended sources in flaring regions. Additional attempts to measure hard X-ray polarization were not sufficient to put constraints on the degree of anisotropy of electrons, but point to the importance of obtaining good quality polarization data.

Microflares and the Statistics of X-ray Flares

This review surveys the statistics of solar X-ray flares, emphasising the new views that RHESSI has given us of the weaker events (the microflares). The new data reveal that these microflares strongly resemble more energetic events in most respects; they occur solely within active regions and exhibit high-temperature/nonthermal emissions in approximately the same proportion as major events. We discuss the distributions of flare parameters (e.g., peak flux) and how these parameters correlate, for instance via the Neupert effect. We also highlight the systematic biases involved in intercomparing data representing many decades of event magnitude. The intermittency of the flare/microflare occurrence, both in space and in time, argues that these discrete events do not explain general coronal heating, either in active regions or in the quiet Sun.

Solar Flares and the Chromosphere

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.

Impulsive phase flare energy transport by large-scale Alfven waves and the electron acceleration problem

The impulsive phase of a solar flare marks the epoch of rapid conversion of energy stored in the pre-flare coronal magnetic field. Hard X-ray observations imply that a substantial fraction of flare energy released during the impulsive phase is converted to the kinetic energy of mildly relativistic electrons (10-100 keV). The liberation of the magnetic free energy can occur as the coronal magnetic field reconfigures and relaxes following reconnection. We investigate a scenario in which products of the reconfiguration - large-scale Alfven wave pulses - transport the energy and magnetic-field changes rapidly through the corona to the lower atmosphere. This offers two possibilities for electron acceleration. Firstly, in a coronal plasma with beta < m_e/m_p, the waves propagate as inertial Alfven waves. In the presence of strong spatial gradients, these generate field-aligned electric fields that can accelerate electrons to energies on the order of 10 keV and above, including by repeated interactions between electrons and wavefronts. Secondly, when they reflect and mode-convert in the chromosphere, a cascade to high wavenumbers may develop. This will also accelerate electrons by turbulence, in a medium with a locally high electron number density. This concept, which bridges MHD-based and particle-based views of a flare, provides an interpretation of the recently-observed rapid variations of the line-of-sight component of the photospheric magnetic field across the flare impulsive phase, and offers solutions to some perplexing flare problems, such as the flare number problem of finding and resupplying sufficient electrons to explain the impulsive-phase hard X-ray emission.