Absolute Abundance Measurements in Solar Flares
Abstract
We present measurements of elemental abundances in solar flares with EVE/SDO and EIS/Hinode. EVE observes both high temperature Fe emission lines Fe XV-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=1.17+-0.22. Furthermore, we have compared the EVE measurements with corresponding flare observations of intermediate temperature S, Ar, Ca, and Fe emission lines taken with EIS. Our initial calculations also indicate a photospheric composition for these observations. 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 in the non-flaring corona occurs.
- Publication:
-
American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #224
- Pub Date:
- June 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014AAS...22412301W