Search Publications
Interrogating Solar Flare Loop Models with IRIS Observations 2: Plasma Properties, Energy Transport, and Future Directions
Kerr, Graham S.
During solar flares a tremendous amount of magnetic energy is released and transported through the Sun's atmosphere and out into the heliosphere. Despite over a century of study, many unresolved questions surrounding solar flares are still present. Among those are how does the solar plasma respond to flare energy deposition, and what are the impor…
Chromospheric thermodynamic conditions from inversions of complex Mg II h & k profiles observed in flares
De Pontieu, Bart; Sainz Dalda, Alberto
The flare activity of the Sun has been studied for decades, using both space- and ground-based telescopes. The former have mainly focused on the corona, while the latter have mostly been used to investigate the conditions in the chromosphere and photosphere. The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) instrument has served as a gateway betwee…
Non-thermal Broadening of IRIS Fe XXI Line Caused by Turbulent Plasma Flows in the Magnetic Reconnection Region During Solar Eruptions
Reeves, Katharine K.; Polito, Vanessa; Chen, Bin +3 more
Magnetic reconnection is the key mechanism for energy release in solar eruptions, where the high-temperature emission is the primary diagnostic for investigating the plasma properties during the reconnection process. Non-thermal broadening of high-temperature lines has been observed in both the reconnection current sheet (CS) and flare loop-top re…
Multi-wavelength observations and modeling of a microflare: constraining non-thermal particle acceleration
Reeves, Katharine K.; Polito, Vanessa; Yu, Sijie +5 more
In this work we analyze a small B-class flare that occurred on 29 April 2021 and was observed simultaneously by the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) and the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) X-ray instrument. The IRIS observations of the ribbon of the flare show peculiar spectral characteristics that are typical signatures…
The universality of power law slopes in the solar photosphere and transition region observed with HMI and IRIS
Aschwanden, Markus J.; Nhalil, Nived Vilangot
We compare the size distributions of self-organized criticality (SOC) systems in the solar photosphere and the transition region, using magnetogram data from Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) and Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) data. For each dataset we fit a combination of a Gaussian and a power law size distribution function, w…