We present the results of a campaign to monitor active M dwarfs using infrared spectroscopy, supplemented with optical photometry and spectroscopy. We detected 16 flares during nearly 50 hours of observations on EV Lac, AD Leo, YZ CMi, and VB8. The three most energetic flares also showed infrared emission, including the first reported detections of Pβ, Pγ, He I 10830Åand Brγduring an M dwarf flare. The strongest flare (Δu = 4.02 on EV Lac) showed emission from Hγ, Hδ, He I 4471Å, and Ca II K in the UV/blue and Pβ, Pγ, Pδ, Brγ, and He I 10830Åin the infrared. The weaker flares (Δu = 1.68 on EV Lac and ΔU = 1.38 on YZ CMi) were only observed with photometry and infrared spectroscopy; both showed emission from Pβ, Pγ, and He I 10830Å. The strongest infrared emission line, Pβ, occurred in the active mid-M dwarfs with a duty cycle of ~3-4%. To examine the most energetic flare, we used the static NLTE radiative transfer code RH to produce model spectra based on a suite of one-dimensional model atmospheres. Using a hotter chromosphere than previous one-dimensional atmospheric models, we obtain line ratios that match most of the observed emission lines.
We propose a method for diagnosing the physical conditions in the solar atmosphere using an increase in oscillation amplitudes resulting from minuscule solar flares. As an example, we consider a B2 flare, which caused a sharp short-lived increase in the amplitude of three- and five-minute oscillations in the lower layers of the solar atmosphere. Enhanced three- and five-minute oscillations propagated from the lower layers of the atmosphere into the corona. Such short oscillation trains made it possible to remove the uncertainties arising in the measurements of the phase and group lags between …
We present the first observational study of the onset and evolution of solar flare turbulence in the lower solar atmosphere on an unprecedented time scale of 1.7 s using the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph observing plasma at a temperature of 80,000 K. At this time resolution, nonthermal spectral line broadening, indicating turbulent velocity fluctuations, precedes the flare onset at this temperature and is coincident with net blue-shifts. The broadening decreases as the flare brightens and then oscillates with a period of ~10 s. These observations are consistent with turbulence in the l…
Solar flares presumably have an impact on the deepest layers of the solar atmosphere and yet the observational evidence for such an impact is scarce. Using ten years of measurements of the Na D$_{1}$ and Na D$_2$ Fraunhofer lines, measured by GOLF onboard SOHO, we show that this photospheric line is indeed affected by flares. The effect of individual flares is hidden by solar oscillations, but a statistical analysis based on conditional averaging reveals a clear signature. Although GOLF can only probe one single wavelength at a time, we show that both wings of the Na line can nevertheless be c…
White-light flares (WLFs), first observed in 1859, refer to a type of solar flares showing an obvious enhancement of the visible continuum emission. This type of enhancement often occurs in most energetic flares, and is usually interpreted as a consequence of efficient heating in the lower solar atmosphere through non-thermal electrons propagating downward from the energy release site in the corona. However, this coronal-reconnection model has difficulty in explaining the recently discovered small WLFs. Here we report a C2.3 white-light flare, which are associated with several observational ph…
During a solar flare, it is believed that reconnection takes place in the corona followed by fast energy transport to the chromosphere. The resulting intense heating strongly disturbs the chromospheric structure, and induces complex radiation hydrodynamic effects. Interpreting the physics of the flaring solar atmosphere is one of the most challenging tasks in solar physics. Here we present a novel deep learning approach, an invertible neural network, to understanding the chromospheric physics of a flaring solar atmosphere via the inversion of observed solar line profiles in Hα and Ca II λ8542.…
The origin of the near-ultraviolet and optical continuum radiation in flares is critical for understanding particle acceleration and impulsive heating in stellar atmospheres. Radiative-hydrodynamic simulations in 1D have shown that high energy deposition rates from electron beams produce two flaring layers at T~10^4 K that develop in the chromosphere: a cooling condensation (downflowing compression) and heated non-moving (stationary) flare layers just below the condensation. These atmospheres reproduce several observed phenomena in flare spectra, such as the red wing asymmetry of the emission …
The extreme ultraviolet portion of the solar spectrum contains a wealth of diagnostic tools for probing the lower solar atmosphere in response to an injection of energy, particularly during the impulsive phase of solar flares. These include temperature and density sensitive line ratios, Doppler shifted emission lines and nonthermal broadening, abundance measurements, differential emission measure profiles, and continuum temperatures and energetics, among others. In this paper I shall review some of the advances made in recent years using these techniques, focusing primarily on studies that hav…
A spectacular manifestation of solar activity is the appearance of transient brightenings in the far wings of the H$α$ line, known as Ellerman bombs (EBs). Recent observations obtained by the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) have revealed another type of plasma "bombs" (UV bursts) with high temperatures of perhaps up to $8\times 10^4$ K within the cooler lower solar atmosphere. Realistic numerical modeling showing such events is needed to explain their nature. Here, we report on 3D radiative magneto-hydrodynamic simulations of magnetic flux emergence in the solar atmosphere. We fin…
We study flare processes in the lower solar atmosphere using observational data for a M1-class flare of June 12, 2014, obtained by New Solar Telescope (NST/BBSO) and Helioseismic Magnetic Imager (HMI/SDO). The main goal is to understand triggers and manifestations of the flare energy release in the lower layers of the solar atmosphere (the photosphere and chromosphere) using high-resolution optical observations and magnetic field measurements. We analyze optical images, HMI Dopplergrams and vector magnetograms, and use Non-Linear Force-Free Field (NLFFF) extrapolations for reconstruction of th…
We present a unified computational framework which can be used to describe impulsive flares on the Sun and on dMe stars. The models assume that the flare impulsive phase is caused by a beam of charged particles that is accelerated in the corona and propagates downward depositing energy and momentum along the way. This rapidly heats the lower stellar atmosphere causing it to explosively expand and dramatically brighten. Our models consist of flux tubes that extend from the sub-photosphere into the corona. We simulate how flare-accelerated charged particles propagate down one-dimensional flux tu…
The solar active region NOAA 11719 produced a large two-ribbon flare on 11 April 2013. We have investigated the sudden variations in the photospheric magnetic fields in this active region during the flare employing the magnetograms obtained in the spectral line Fe I 6173 Angstrom by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) onboard Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The analysis of the line-of-sight magnetograms from HMI show sudden and persistent magnetic field changes at different locations of the active region before the onset of the flare and during the flare. The vector magnetic field obs…
Detailed studies of the Sun have shown that sunspots and solar flares are closely correlated. Photometric data from Kepler/K2 has allowed similar studies to be carried out on other stars. Here, we utilise TESS photometric 2-min cadence of 167 low mass stars from Sectors 1 - 3 to investigate the relationship between starspots and stellar flares. From our sample, 90 percent show clear rotational modulation likely due to the presence of a large, dominant starspot and we use this to determine a rotational period for each star. Additionally, each low mass star shows one or more flares in its lightc…
A spatio-temporal analysis of IRIS spectra of MgII, CII, and SiIV ions allows us to study the dynamics and the stratification of the flare atmosphere along the line of sight during the magnetic reconnection phase at the jet base. Strong asymmetric MgII and CII line profiles with extended blue wings observed at the reconnection site are interpreted by the presence of two chromospheric temperature clouds: one explosive cloud with blueshifts at 290 km/s and one cloud with smaller Doppler shift (around 36 km/s). Simultaneously at the same location a mini flare was observed with strong emission in …
We investigated the response of the solar atmosphere to non-thermal electron beam heating using the radiative transfer and hydrodynamics modelling code RADYN. The temporal evolution of the parameters that describe the non-thermal electron energy distribution were derived from hard X-ray observations of a particular flare, and we compared the modelled and observed parameters. The evolution of the non-thermal electron beam parameters during the X1.5 solar flare on 2011 March 9 were obtained from analysis of RHESSI X-ray spectra. The RADYN flare model was allowed to evolve for 110 seconds, after …
Flare ribbons are bright manifestations of flare energy dissipation in the lower solar atmosphere. For the first time, we report on high-resolution imaging spectroscopy observations of flare ribbons situated off-limb in the H$β$ and Ca II 8542 Å lines and make a detailed comparison with radiative hydrodynamic simulations. Observations of the X8.2-class solar flare SOL2017-09-10T16:06 UT obtained with the Swedish Solar Telescope reveal bright horizontal emission layers in H$β$ line wing images located near the footpoints of the flare loops. The apparent separation between the ribbon observed in…
We study flare processes in the solar atmosphere using observational data for a M1-class flare of June 12, 2014, obtained by New Solar Telescope (NST/BBSO) and Helioseismic Magnetic Imager (HMI/SDO). The main goal is to understand triggers and manifestations of the flare energy release in the photosphere and chromosphere using high-resolution optical observations and magnetic field measurements. We analyze optical images, HMI Dopplergrams and vector magnetograms, and use Non-Linear Force-Free Field (NLFFF) extrapolations for reconstruction of the magnetic topology and electric currents. The NL…
Solar flares are generally believed to be powered by free magnetic energy stored in the corona, but the build up of coronal energy alone may be insufficient for the imminent flare occurrence. The flare onset mechanism is a critical but less understood problem, insights into which could be gained from small-scale energy releases known as precursors, which are observed as small pre-flare brightenings in various wavelengths, and also from certain small-scale magnetic configurations such as the opposite polarity fluxes, where magnetic orientation of small bipoles is opposite to that of the ambient…
The Fe I 6173 Å line is widely used in the measurements of vector magnetic fields by instruments including the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI). We perform non-local thermodynamic equilibrium calculations of this line based on radiative hydrodynamic simulations in a flaring atmosphere. We employ both a quiet-Sun atmosphere and a penumbral atmosphere as the initial one in our simulations. We find that, in the quiet-Sun atmosphere, the line center is obviously enhanced during an intermediate flare. The enhanced emission is contributed from both radiative backwarming in the photosphere and …
We present a study of multi-wavelength observations, of a C 2.3 solar flare in Active Region NOAA 12353, observed on 2015 May 23, which reveal new properties of acoustic waves in the flaring region. The space-, and ground-based data measured by the HELioseismological Large Regions Interferometric Device, operating at the Vacuum Tower Telescope, the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, and Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager on board the Solar Dynamic Observatory, were used in this paper. First, using power spectra of solar oscillations, we identified the dominant frequencies and their location at seven …
Kappa distributions and with loss cone features have been frequently observed with flares emissions with the signatures of Lower hybrid waves. We have analysed the plasma with Kappa distributions and with loss cone features for the drift wave instabilities in perpendicular propagation for Large flare and Normal flare and Coronal condition . While analysing the growth/damping rate, we understand that the growth of propagation of EM waves increases with kappa distribution index for all the three cases. In comparing the propagation large flare shows lesser growth in compared with the normal and t…
We study the decay phase of solar flares in several spectral bands using a method based on that successfully applied to white light flares observed on an M4 dwarf. We selected and processed 102 events detected in the Sun-as-a-star flux obtained with SDO/AIA images in the 1600~Å and 304~Å channels and 54 events detected in the 1700~Å channel. The main criterion for the selection of time profiles was a slow, continuous flux decay without significant new bursts. The obtained averaged time profiles were fitted with analytical templates, using different time intervals, that consisted of a combinati…
We compute the change in the Lorentz force integrated over the outer solar atmosphere implied by observed changes in vector magnetograms that occur during large, eruptive solar flares. This force perturbation should be balanced by an equal and opposite force perturbation acting on the solar photosphere and solar interior. The resulting expression for the estimated force change in the solar interior generalizes the earlier expression presented by Hudson, Fisher and Welsch (CS-383, ASP, 221, 2008), providing horizontal as well as vertical force components, and provides a more accurate result for…
We study the M1.9 class solar flare SOL2015-09-27T10:40 UT using high-resolution full-Stokes imaging spectropolarimetry of the Ca ii 8542 Å line obtained with the CRISP imaging spectropolarimeter at the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope. Spectropolarimetric inversions using the non-LTE code NICOLE are used to construct semi-empirical models of the flaring atmosphere to investigate the structure and evolution of the flare temperature and magnetic field. A comparison of the temperature stratification in flaring and non-flaring areas reveals strong heating of the flare ribbon during the flare peak. The…
Investigating the propagation of small-scale flare energy in the lower and upper atmosphere of solar active region
Physical Research Laboratory（物理研究实验室）；Indian Institute of Technology Gandhinagar（甘地纳加尔印度理工学院）；University of Cambridge（剑桥大学）；University of Sheffield（谢菲尔德大学）；Eötvös Loránd University（罗兰大学）；Gyula Bay Zoltán Solar Observatory (GSO)（久拉·巴伊·佐尔坦太阳观测站）
Recent observations in extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) wavelengths reveal an EUV late phase in some solar flares that is characterized by a second peak in warm coronal emissions ($\sim3$~MK) several tens of minutes to a few hours after the soft X-ray (SXR) peak. Using the model enthalpy-based thermal evolution of loops (EBTEL), in this paper we numerically probe the production of EUV late-phase solar flares. Starting from two main mechanisms of producing the EUV late phase, i.e., long-lasting cooling and secondary heating, we carry out two groups of numerical experiments to study the effects of thes…
Solar flares show highly unusual spectra, in which the thermodynamic conditions of the solar atmosphere are encoded. Current models are unable to fully reproduce the spectroscopic flare observations, especially the single-peaked spectral profiles of the MgII h and k lines. We aim at understanding the formation of the chromospheric and optically thick MgII h and k lines in flares through radiative transfer calculations. We take a flare atmosphere obtained from a simulation with the radiative hydrodynamic code RADYN as input for a radiative transfer modeling with the RH code. By iteratively chan…
This work demonstrates the possibility of magnetic field topology investigations using microwave polarimetric observations. We study a solar flare of GOES M1.7 class that occurred on 11 February, 2014. This flare revealed a clear signature of spatial inversion of the radio emission polarization sign. We show that the observed polarization pattern can be explained by nonthermal gyrosynchrotron emission from the twisted magnetic structure. Using observations of the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager, Nobeyama Radio Observatory, Radio Solar Telescope Network, and Solar Dynamics …
Understanding the dynamics of the solar chromosphere is crucial to understanding energy transport across the solar atmosphere. The chromosphere is optically thick at many wavelengths and described by non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NLTE), making it difficult to interpret observations. Furthermore, there is considerable evidence that the atmosphere is filamented, and that current instruments do not sufficiently resolve small scale features. In flares, it is likely that multithreaded models are required to describe the heating. The combination of NLTE effects and multithreaded modeling requ…
We study the physical properties and behavior of the solar atmosphere during the GOES X1.6 solar flare on 2014 September 10. The steady plasma flows and the fast sausage MHD waves were analysed with the wavelet separation method. The magnetically coupled atmosphere and the forced magnetic field reconnection were studied with the help of the Vertical-Current Approximation Non-linear Force-Free Field code. We studied a mechanism of MHD wave transfer from the photosphere without dissipation or reflection before reaching the corona and a mechanism of the wave energy distribution over the solar cor…
The hard X-ray (HXR) emission in solar flares comes almost exclusively from a very small part of the flaring region, the footpoints of magnetic loops. Using RHESSI observations of solar flare footpoints, we determine the radial positions and sizes of footpoints as a function of energy in six near-limb events to investigate the transport of flare accelerated electrons and the properties of the chromosphere. HXR visibility forward fitting allows to find the positions/heights and the sizes of HXR footpoints along and perpendicular to the magnetic field of the flaring loop at different energies in…
The infrared Mg I lines near 12 microns are a pair of emission lines which are magnetically sensitive and have been used to measure solar magnetic fields. Here we calculate the response of the Mg I 12.32 $μ$m line during a flare and find that in our modeling this line has a complicated behavior. At the beginning of the flare heating, this line shows an intensity dimming at the line center. The intensity then increases when heating continues, with increasing contributions from the heated layers in the chromosphere. The line formation height and the line width also increase as a result. As for t…
Stellar flares are a frequent occurrence on young low-mass stars around which many detected exoplanets orbit. Flares are energetic, impulsive events, and their impact on exoplanetary atmospheres needs to be taken into account when interpreting transit observations. We have developed a model to describe the upper atmosphere of Extrasolar Giant Planets (EGPs) orbiting flaring stars. The model simulates thermal escape from the upper atmospheres of close-in EGPs. Ionisation by solar radiation and electron impact is included and photochemical and diffusive transport processes are simulated. This mo…
Stellar flare-driven evolution of primordial early exo-Earth atmospheres: Insights from a Young M Dwarf Flare model
University of Oslo（奥斯陆大学）；National Solar Observatory, University of Colorado Boulder（美国国家太阳天文台，科罗拉多大学博尔德分校）；Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado（科罗拉多大学天体物理与行星科学系）；Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics, University of Colorado Boulder（科罗拉多大学博尔德分校大气与空间物理实验室）；Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics, University of Oslo（奥斯陆大学罗森兰太阳物理中心）；Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo（奥斯陆大学理论天体物理研究所）
Spectral lines allow us to probe the thermodynamics of the solar atmosphere, but the shape of a single spectral line may be similar for different thermodynamic solutions. Multiline analyses are therefore crucial, but computationally cumbersome. We investigate correlations between several chromospheric and transition region lines to restrain the thermodynamic solutions of the solar atmosphere during flares. We used machine-learning methods to capture the statistical dependencies between 6 spectral lines sourced from 21 large solar flares observed by NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph …
Solar flares release an enormous amount of energy into the corona. A substantial fraction of this energy is transported to the lower atmosphere, which results in chromospheric heating. The mechanisms that transport energy to the lower solar atmosphere during a flare are still not fully understood. We aim to estimate the temporal evolution of the radiative losses in the chromosphere at the footpoints of a C-class flare, in order to set observational constraints on the electron beam parameters of a RADYN flare simulation. We estimated the radiative losses from hydrogen, and singly ionized Ca and…
We study the temporal evolution of the Na I D1 line profiles in the M3.9 flare SOL2014-06-11T21:03 UT, using high spectral resolution observations obtained with the IBIS instrument on the Dunn Solar Telescope combined with radiative hydrodynamic simulations. Our results show a significant increase in line core and wing intensities during the flare. The analysis of the line profiles from the flare ribbons reveal that the Na I D1 line has a central reversal with excess emission in the blue wing (blue asymmetry). We combine RADYN and RH simulations to synthesise Na I D1 line profiles of the flari…
Recent detections of high-energy $γ$-rays from behind-the-limb (BTL) solar flares by the \emph{Fermi $γ$-ray Space Telescope} pose a puzzle and challenge on the particle acceleration and transport mechanisms. In such events, the $γ$-ray emission region is located away from the BTL flare site by up to tens of degrees in heliogrpahic longitude. It is thus hypothesized that particles are accelerated at the shock driven by the coronal mass ejection (CME) and then travel from the shock downstream back to the front side of the Sun to produce the observed $γ$-rays. To test this scenario, we performed…
Low-mass stars show evidence of vigorous magnetic activity in the form of large flares and coronal mass ejections. Such space weather events may have important ramifications for the habitability and observational fingerprints of exoplanetary atmospheres. Here, using a suite of three-dimensional coupled chemistry-climate model (CCM) simulations, we explore effects of time-dependent stellar activity on rocky planet atmospheres orbiting G-, K-, and M-dwarf stars. We employ observed data from the MUSCLES campaign and Transiting Exoplanet Satellite Survey and test a range of rotation period, magnet…
The \ion{Fe}{i} lines observed by the Hinode/SOT spectropolarimeter were always seen in absorption, apart from the extreme solar limb. Here we analyse a unique dataset capturing these lines in emission during a solar white-light flare. We analyse the temperature stratification in the solar photosphere during a white-light flare and compare it with the post-white-light flare state. We used two scans of the Hinode/SOT spectropolarimeter to infer, by means of the LTE inversion code Stokes Inversion based on Response function (SIR), the physical properties in the solar photosphere during and after…
As one of the most violent activities in the solar atmosphere, white-light flares (WLFs) are generally known for their enhanced white-light (or continuum) emission, which primarily originates in the solar lower atmosphere. However, we know little about how white-light emission is produced. In this study, we aim to investigate the response of the continua at 3600Å and 4250Å and also the H$α$ and Ly$α$ lines during WLFs modeled with radiative hydrodynamics simulations. We take non-thermal electron beams as the energy source for the WLFs in two different initial atmospheres and vary their paramet…
Characterization of white-light enhancements under umbral conditions in one-dimensional simulations of solar flares
University of Oslo（奥斯陆大学）；Institute of Theoretical Astrophysics, University of Oslo（奥斯陆大学理论天体物理研究所）；Rosseland Centre for Solar Physics, University of Oslo（奥斯陆大学罗斯兰太阳物理中心）
We present high-resolution and multi-line observations of a C2-class solar flare, occurred in NOAA AR 12740 on May 6, 2019. The rise, peak and decay phases of the flare were recorded continuously and quasi-simultaneously in the Ca II K line with the CHROMIS instrument, the Ca II 8542 and Fe I 6173 Ålines with the CRISP instrument at the SST. The observations in the chromospheric Ca II lines exhibit intense brightening near the flare footpoints. At these locations, a non-LTE inversion code was employed to infer the temperature, magnetic field, line-of-sight (LOS) velocity and microturbulent vel…
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental physical process in many laboratory, space, and astrophysical plasma contexts. Solar flares serve as an outstanding laboratory to study the magnetic reconnection and the associated energy release and conversion processes under plasma conditions difficult to reproduce in the laboratory, and with considerable spatiotemporal details not possible elsewhere in astrophysics. Here we emphasize the unique power of remote-sensing observations of solar flares at radio wavelengths. In particular, we discuss the transformative technique of broadband radio dynamic ima…
We analyze a grid of radiative hydrodynamic simulations of solar flares to study the energy balance and response of the atmosphere to nonthermal electron beam heating. The appearance of chromospheric bubbles is one of the most notable features that we find in the simulations. These pockets of chromospheric plasma get trapped between the transition region and the lower atmosphere as it is superheated by the particle beam. The chromospheric bubbles are seen in the synthetic spectra, appearing as an additional component to Balmer line profiles with high Doppler velocities as high as 200 km/s. The…
The 2014 March 29 X1 solar flare (SOL20140329T17:48) produced bright continuum emission in the far- and near-ultraviolet (NUV) and highly asymmetric chromospheric emission lines, providing long-sought constraints on the heating mechanisms of the lower atmosphere in solar flares. We analyze the continuum and emission line data from the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) of the brightest flaring magnetic footpoints in this flare. We compare the NUV spectra of the brightest pixels to new radiative-hydrodynamic predictions calculated with the RADYN code using constraints on a nonthermal …
The Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph(IRIS) with its high spatial and temporal resolution brings exceptional plasma diagnostics of solar chromospheric and coronal activity during magnetic reconnection. The aim of this work is to study the fine structure and dynamics of the plasma at a jet base forming a mini flare between two emerging magnetic fluxes (EMFs) observed with IRIS and the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) instruments. We proceed to a spatio-temporal analysis of IRIS spectra observed in the spectral ranges of Mg II, C II, and Si IV ions. Doppler velocities from Mg II lines are co…
A crucial feature not widely accounted for in local helioseismology is that surface magnetic regions actually open a window from the interior into the solar atmosphere, and that the seismic waves leak through this window, reflect high in the atmosphere, and then re-enter the interior to rejoin the seismic wave field normally confined there. In a series of recent numerical studies using translation invariant atmospheres, we utilised a "directional time-distance helioseismology" measurement scheme to study the implications of the returning fast and Alfvén waves higher up in the solar atmosphere …
The presence of current sheet instabilities, such as the tearing mode instability, are needed to account for the observed rate of energy release in solar flares. Insights into these current sheet dynamics can be revealed by the behaviour of flare ribbon substructure, as magnetic reconnection accelerates particles down newly reconnected field lines into the chromosphere to mark the flare footpoints. Behaviour in the ribbons can therefore be used to probe processes occurring in the current sheet. In this study, we use high-cadence (1.7 s) IRIS Slit Jaw Imager observations to probe for the growth…
Solar flares are powerful radiations occuring in the Sun's atmosphere. They are powered by magnetic reconnection, a phemonenon that can convert magnetic energy into other forms of energy such as heat and kinetic energy, and it is believed to be ubiquitous in the universe. With the ever increasing spatial and temporal resolutions of solar observations, as well as numerical simulations benefiting from increasing computer power, we can now probe into the nature and the characteristics of magnetic reconnection in 3D to better understand its consequences during eruptive flares in our star's atmosph…
High-energy solar flares have shown to have at least two distinct phases: prompt-impulsive and delayed-gradual. Identifying the mechanism responsible for accelerating the electrons and ions and the site at which it occurs during these two phases is one of the outstanding questions in solar physics. Many advances have been made over the past decade thanks to new observational data and refined simulations that together help to shed light on this topic. For example, the detection by Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) of GeV emission from solar flares originating from behind the visible solar limb a…
High-energy stellar irradiation can photoevaporate planetary atmospheres, which can be observed in spectroscopic transits of hydrogen lines. For the exoplanet HD189733b, multiple observations in the Ly-$α$ line have shown that atmospheric evaporation is variable, going from undetected to enhanced evaporation in a $1.5$-year interval. Coincidentally or not, when HD189733b was observed to be evaporating, a stellar flare had just occurred 8h prior to the observation. This led to the question of whether this temporal variation in evaporation occurred due to the flare, an unseen associated coronal …
