The anatomy of chromosphereic flares and associated ephemeral brightenings

Chromospheric flares have been carefully observed and studied for many decades. Ribbons of hot plasma appear, brighten, and separate during the course of a flare. Adjacent to eruptions with associated coronal mass ejections, compact brightenings are observed in the impulsive phase of the flare. What causes these compact brightenings adjacent to flares? What can they tell us about the solar conditions that formed the chromospheric flare? We present a new automated algorithm to identify, track, and characterize small-scale brightening associated with solar eruptive phenomena observed in H a. The temporal, spatially localized changes in chromospheric intensities can be separated into two categories: flare ribbons and sequential chromospheric brightenings (SCBs). Within each category of brightening we determine the smallest resolvable locus of pixels, a kernel, and track the temporal evolution of the position and intensity of each kernel. We fully characterize the evolving intensity and morphology of the flare ribbons by observing the tracked flare kernels in aggregate. With the location of SCB and flare kernels identified, they can easily be overlaid on complementary data sets to extract coronal intensities, Doppler velocities, and magnetic-field intensities underlying the kernels. We then report on the physical properties of SCBs. Following the algorithmic identification and a statistical analysis, we compare and find the following: SCBs are distinctly different from flare brightening in their temporal characteristics of intensity, Doppler structure, duration, and location properties. Within the studied population of SCBs, different classes of characteristics are observed with coincident negative, positive, or both negative and positive Doppler shifts of a few km The appearance of SCBs often precedes peak flare intensity. They are also found to propagate laterally away from flare center in clusters at two distinct velocity groups. Given SCBs' distinctive nature compared to flares, we suggest a physical triggering mechanism relating to SCBs' origin, the associated flare, and coronal mass ejections. We present a heuristic model of SCBs in the chromosphere.