1. Evolution of Flare Ribbons and Energy Release
Ayumi ASAI1,
Satoshi MASUDA2, Takaaki YOKOYAMA3, Masumi SHIMOJO3, Hiroki KUROKAWA1, and Kazunari SHIBATA1
1: Kwasan and Hida Observatories, Kyoto University
2: Solar-Telestorial Environment Laboratory, Nagoya University
3: Nobeyama Radio Observatory, NAOJ
November 2002
NOAA 9415
3. SEPARATION SPEED OF FLARE RIBBONS
1. INTRODUCTION
To solve the questions about particle acceleration, it is important to investigate when and where energy release occurs and the amount of the released magnetic energy during solar flares. We estimated the released energy via magnetic reconnection in the corona by using photospheric and chromospheric features.
We observed an X2.3 flare which occurred in active region NOAA9415 on 2001 April 10 (Fig. 1), in Ha with the Sartorius Telescope at Kwasan Observatory.
We examined the relation between the separation speed of the flare ribbons with the energy release rate. Fig. 4 shows the separation of the flare ribbons.
Neutral line
Fig.1 Ha full disk image obtained with Flare Monitoring Telescope at Hida Observatory.
Time Slice
HXR sources appear when the separation speed of the flare ribbons reduces. This seems that the energy release rate inversely depend on the separation speed. However, it is also known that the separation of the flare ribbon is decelerated by strong magnetic field.
It is needed to examine both the dependencies of separation speed and magnetic field strength, simultaneously.
Distance
05:10 W1
Comparing the Ha images with the hard X-ray (HXR) images obtained with Yohkoh/HXT, we found the difference between the spatial distribution of the Ha kernels and that of the HXR sources (Fig. 2): only two sources accompanied with Ha kernels are seen in HXR.
HXR sources E1 W2 × W3 E2
HXR source E3 E4 W4
05:30
Fig.2 Ha image and HXR image.
To explain the different appearance, we estimated the energy release rates at each Ha kernels by using photospheric magnetic field strength and separation speed of flare ribbons.
time
Energy release rate (dE/dt) is written as:
Fig.4 Separation of the Ha flare ribbons (Ha time slice image). The cross shows an HXR source.
B : magnetic field strength
vi : inflow velocity
A : area of reconnection region
4. RECONNECTION RATE AND POYNTING FLUX
The dynamic range of HXT is low (～10). If energy release rates at the HXR sources are (at least) 10 times larger than those at the other Ha kernels, the difference of appearance can be explained.
Reconnection rate (v×B) and Poynting flux (v×B2) are suitable to estimate the energy release rate by using the photospheric magnetic field strengths and the separation speed of the Ha flare ribbons .
Fig.3 Cartoon of magnetic reconnection.
Magnetic Field Strength
distance from
neutral line
Bcoronavi = Bphotospherevfoot
Bcorona2vi ∝ Bphotosphere2vfoot
Reconnection rate
Poynting Flux
(Conservation of magnetic flux)
(Bcorona∝Bphotosphere is assumed)
2. MAGNETIC FIELD STRENGTH
Separating Velocity
We measured the photospheric magnetic field strengths at each Ha kernel both with and without They are 3 times larger at the HXR sources than the other Ha kernels (Table 1). If vi has no dependence on B, then dE/dt ∝ B2. This shows that dE/dts at the HXR sources are about 9 time larger. This is not large enough.
Microwave
We estimated the temporal evolutions of the reconnection rate and the Poynting flux along a slit put on an HXR source, like sec.3. The temporal evolutions of the reconnection rate and the Poyntin flux are well fitted with the HXR light curve (Fig. 5).
Comparing the evolutions at each slit, we found that they are also locally large enough at the HXR sources, and can explain the difference of spatial distributions between HXR and Ha images.
Reconnection
Rate v×B
Then we examine the possibility that vi has some dependence on B, as some reconnection models suggest.
HXR
Poynting Flux
v×B2
Table1.
magnetic field strength
at each source (G)
vi ∝ B0.5 ⇒ dE/dt ∝ B2.5 : Sweet-Parker type reconnection
vi ∝ B ⇒ dE/dt ∝ B3 : Petschek type reconnection
E1 : 300
E2 : 1350
E3 : 550
E4 : 500
W1 : 300
W2 : 1200
W3 : 500
W4 : 450
The estimated energy release rates at the HXR sources is 16 and 27 times larger than those at the other Ha kernels, respectively. It is larger than the dynamic range of HXT.
Fig.5 Comparison of the reconnection rate and the Poynting flux with nonthermal light curves (microwave and HXR).
We made extensive use of Yohkoh Data Center, and SOHO MDI Data Service.