An Overall Frameworkfor Solar Flares?

H. S. HudsonSpace Sciences Laboratory

University of California, Berkeley

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Dimming, implosion, oscillations

A broad framework

• How does the flare instability work?• Formation of signatures• Plasma physics• Consequences

- Coronal structure

- Astrobiology?

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What is the basic physics of a flare/CME, and how do we relate observations of many diverse types to understanding it?

One natural approach is to make a cartoon, understood to be a kind of giant interpolation formula

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Contributions welcome!

Contributions welcome!

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Google “Flare Cartoons”

Cartoons

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Tan & Huang 2006

Anzer & Pneuman 1982

Fletcher & Hudson 2008

http://solarmuri.ssl.berkeley.edu/~hhudson/cartoons

Ergun et al. 2002

Formation of signatures:spectroscopy

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• Problem of solar UV spectroscopy (lack of!)• The impulsive phase: transition between thermal and

nonthermal plasma states• Particle acceleration

Plasma physics I: particle acceleration

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• The impulsive phase: electrons at 104 kT dominate

• The coronal phase: LCR ~ 0.1 Lbol

Mewaldt et al. 2007

Plasma physics II

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• How does the flare instability proceed?

• How do we understand the coupling of scales?

• Physics of waves• Ion-neutral physics in the

chromosphere

Consequences

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• The nanoflare hypothesis• Luminosity: Is the diverted energy important?• Hard radiation and astrobiology?

A broad framework

• How does the flare instability work?• Formation of signatures• Plasma physics• Consequences

- Coronal structure

- Astrobiology?

CS-16 29/08/10

What is the basic physics of a flare/CME, and how do we relate observations of many diverse types to understanding it?

One natural approach is to make a cartoon, understood to be a kind of giant interpolation formula

Conclusions

• Solar flares, for all their complexity, have simple organizing principles

• The basic question – “How does the impulsive phase work?” – remains unanswered

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See also Hudson & Micela, CS-14

Thanks

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Magnetic changes during flares

“Confusogram” legend: 10x10 2.5” pixels 240 minutes time base 500 G magnetic range

(Sudol & Harvey 2005)

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Flare energy

Woods et al 2004

Hudson et al 2006

In time In space