Theory of solar flares
Abstract
The calculation of solar flare emissions from first principles requires consideration of the coronal reconnection process which releases magnetic energy in the corona, the transport process which conveys this energy to the chromosphere, and the evaporation process which injects mass back into the corona to form the flare loops. Although numerous calculations of this kind have been carried out on the latter two processes, very few have been done on the first one, that is how reconnection heats and accelerates plasma over the course of the flare. The main reason so few calculations have been done is that the way the reconnection process converts magnetic energy into heat and flows depends critically on the mechanism which initiates the flare, and the nature of this mechanism is poorly understood at the present time. Here we present a theoretical light curve for a flare based on the assumption that the initiating mechanism is an ideal-MHD instability which drives reconnection at a current sheet that forms after flare onset.
- Publication:
-
34th COSPAR Scientific Assembly
- Pub Date:
- 2002
- Bibcode:
- 2002cosp...34E.775F