arXiv subjects

Hugh S. Hudson

Publications and source records attributed to Hugh S. Hudson.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

NuSTAR Observation of a Minuscule Microflare in a Solar Active Region

We present X-ray imaging spectroscopy of one of the weakest active region (AR) microflares ever studied. The microflare occurred at $\sim$11:04 UT on 2018 September 9 and we studied it using the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope ARray (NuSTAR) and the Solar Dynamic Observatory's Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (SDO/AIA). The microflare is observed clearly in 2.5-7 keV with NuSTAR and in Fe XVIII emission derived from the hotter component of the 94 $\unicode{x212B}$ SDO/AIA channel. We estimate the event to be three orders of magnitude lower than a GOES A class microflare with an energy of 1.1$\times$10$^{26}$ erg. It reaches temperatures of 6.7 MK with an emission measure of 8.0$\times$10$^{43}$ cm$^{-3}$. Non-thermal emission is not detected but we instead determine upper limits to such emission. We present the lowest thermal energy estimate for an AR microflare in literature, which is at the lower limits of what is still considered an X-ray microflare.

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arXiv2019

A Correlation in the Waiting-time Distributions of Solar Flares

In isolated solar active regions, we find that the waiting times between flares correlate with flare magnitudes as determined by the GOES soft X-ray fluxes. A "build-up and release" scenario (BUR) for magnetic energy storage in the solar corona suggests the existence of such a relationship, relating the slowly varying subphotospheric energy sources to the sudden coronal energy releases of flares and CMEs. Substantial amounts of research effort had not previously found any obvious observational evidence for such a BUR process. This has posed a puzzle since coronal magnetic energy storage represents the consensus view of the basic flare mechanism. We have revisited the GOES soft X-ray flare statistics for any evidence of correlations, using two isolated active regions, and have found significant evidence for a "saturation" correlation. Rather than a "reset" form of this relaxation, in which the time \textit{before} a flare correlates with its magnitude, the "saturation" relationship results in the time \textit{after} the flare showing the correlation. The observed correlation competes with the effect of reduced GOES sensitivity, in which weaker events can be under-reported systematically. This complicates the observed correlation, and we discuss several approaches to remedy this.

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arXiv2019

Joint X-ray, EUV and UV Observations of a Small Microflare

We present the first joint observation of a small microflare in X-rays with the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope ARray (NuSTAR), UV with the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) and EUV with the Solar Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (SDO/AIA). These combined observations allows us to study the microflare's hot coronal and cooler chromospheric/transition region emission. This small microflare peaks from SOL2016-07-26T23:35 to 23:36UT, in both NuSTAR, SDO/AIA and IRIS. Spatially this corresponds to a small loop visible in the SDO/AIA Fe XVIII emission, which matches a similar structure lower in the solar atmosphere seen by IRIS in SJI1330Å and 1400Å. The NuSTAR emission in both 2.5-4 keV and 4-6 keV, is located in a small source at this loop location. The IRIS slit was over the microflaring loop, and fits show little change in Mg II but do show intensity increases, slight width enhancements and redshifts in Si IV andO IV, indicating that this microflare had most significance in and above the upper chromosphere. The NuSTAR microflare spectrum is well fitted by a thermal component of 5.8MK and $2.3\times10^{44}$ cm$^{-3}$, which corresponds to a thermal energy of $10^{26}$ erg, making it considerably smaller than previously studied X-ray microflares. No non-thermal emission was detected but this could be due to the limited effective exposure time of the observation. This observation shows that even ordinary features seen in UV and EUV, can remarkably have a higher energy component that is clear in X-rays.

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arXiv2018

NuSTAR Detection of X-Ray Heating Events in the Quiet Sun

The explanation of the coronal heating problem potentially lies in the existence of nanoflares, numerous small-scale heating events occuring across the whole solar disk. In this paper, we present the first imaging spectroscopy X-ray observations of three quiet Sun flares during the NuSTAR solar campaigns on 2016 July 26 and 2017 March 21, concurrent with SDO/AIA observations. Two of the three events showed time lags of a few minutes between peak X-ray and extreme ultraviolet (EUV) emissions. Isothermal fits with rather low temperatures in the range $3.2-4.1$ MK and emission measures of $(0.6-15)\times10^{44} \textrm{ cm}^{-3}$ describe their spectra well, resulting in thermal energies in the range $(2-6)\times10^{26}\textrm{ ergs}$. NuSTAR spectra did not show any signs of a nonthermal or higher temperature component. However, since the estimated upper limits of (hidden) nonthermal energy are comparable to the thermal energy estimates, the lack of a nonthermal component in the observed spectra is not a constraining result. The estimated GOES classes from the fitted values of temperature and emission measure fall between $1/1000 \textrm{ and } 1/100$ A class level, making them 8 orders of magnitude fainter in soft X-ray flux than the largest solar flares.

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arXiv2017

The Relationship between Long-Duration Gamma-Ray Flares and Solar Cosmic Rays

A characteristic pattern of solar hard X-ray emission, first identified in SOL1969-03-30 by Frost & Dennis (1971), turns out to have a close association with the prolonged high-energy gamma-ray emission originally observed by Forrest et al. (1985). This identification has become clear via the observations of long-duration gamma-ray flares by the Fermi/LAT experiment, for example in the event SOL2014-09-01. The distinctive features of these events include flat hard X-ray spectra extending well above 100 keV, a characteristic pattern of time development, low-frequency gyrosynchrotron peaks, CME association, and gamma-rays identifiable with pion decay originating in GeV ions. The identification of these events with otherwise known solar structures nevertheless remains elusive, in spite of the wealth of EUV imagery available from SDO/AIA. The quandary is that these events have a clear association with SEPs in the high corona, and yet the gamma-ray production implicates the photosphere itself, despite the strong mirror force that should focus the particles \textit{away} from the Sun We discuss the morphology of these phenomena and propose a solution to this problem.

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arXiv2017

First NuSTAR Limits on Quiet Sun Hard X-Ray Transient Events

We present the first results of a search for transient hard X-ray (HXR) emission in the quiet solar corona with the \textit{Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array} (\textit{NuSTAR}) satellite. While \textit{NuSTAR} was designed as an astrophysics mission, it can observe the Sun above 2~keV with unprecedented sensitivity due to its pioneering use of focusing optics. \textit{NuSTAR} first observed quiet Sun regions on 2014 November 1, although out-of-view active regions contributed a notable amount of background in the form of single-bounce (unfocused) X-rays. We conducted a search for quiet Sun transient brightenings on time scales of 100 s and set upper limits on emission in two energy bands. We set 2.5--4~keV limits on brightenings with time scales of 100 s, expressed as the temperature T and emission measure EM of a thermal plasma. We also set 10--20~keV limits on brightenings with time scales of 30, 60, and 100 s, expressed as model-independent photon fluxes. The limits in both bands are well below previous HXR microflare detections, though not low enough to detect events of equivalent T and EM as quiet Sun brightenings seen in soft X-ray observations. We expect future observations during solar minimum to increase the \textit{NuSTAR} sensitivity by over two orders of magnitude due to higher instrument livetime and reduced solar background.

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arXiv2017

Microflare Heating of a Solar Active Region Observed with NuSTAR, Hinode/XRT, and SDO/AIA

NuSTAR is a highly sensitive focusing hard X-ray (HXR) telescope and has observed several small microflares in its initial solar pointings. In this paper, we present the first joint observation of a microflare with NuSTAR and Hinode/XRT on 2015 April 29 at ~11:29 UT. This microflare shows heating of material to several million Kelvin, observed in Soft X-rays (SXRs) with Hinode/XRT, and was faintly visible in Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) with SDO/AIA. For three of the four NuSTAR observations of this region (pre-, decay, and post phases) the spectrum is well fitted by a single thermal model of 3.2-3.5 MK, but the spectrum during the impulsive phase shows additional emission up to 10 MK, emission equivalent to A0.1 GOES class. We recover the differential emission measure (DEM) using SDO/AIA, Hinode/XRT, and NuSTAR, giving unprecedented coverage in temperature. We find the pre-flare DEM peaks at ~3 MK and falls off sharply by 5 MK; but during the microflare's impulsive phase the emission above 3 MK is brighter and extends to 10 MK, giving a heating rate of about $2.5 \times 10^{25}$ erg s$^{-1}$. As the NuSTAR spectrum is purely thermal we determined upper-limits on the possible non-thermal bremsstrahlung emission. We find that for the accelerated electrons to be the source of the heating requires a power-law spectrum of $δ\ge 7$ with a low energy cut-off $E_{c} \lesssim 7$ keV. In summary, this first NuSTAR microflare strongly resembles much more powerful flares.

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arXiv2017

Formation of the thermal infrared continuum in solar flares

Observations of the Sun with the Atacama Large Millimeter Array have now started, and the thermal infrared will regularly be accessible from the NSF's Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope. Motivated by the prospect of these new data, and by recent flare observations in the mid infrared, we set out here to model and understand the source of the infrared continuum in flares, and to explore its diagnostic capability for the physical conditions in the flare atmosphere. We use the 1D radiation hydrodynamics code RADYN to calculate mid-infrared continuum emission from model atmospheres undergoing sudden deposition of energy by non-thermal electrons. We identify and characterise the main continuum thermal emission processes relevant to flare intensity enhancement in the mid- to far-infrared (2-200 $μ$m) spectral range as free-free emission on neutrals and ions. We find that the infrared intensity evolution tracks the energy input to within a second, albeit with a lingering intensity enhancement, and provides a very direct indication of the evolution of the atmospheric ionization. The prediction of highly impulsive emission means that, on these timescales, the atmospheric hydrodynamics need not be considered in analysing the mid-IR signatures.

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arXiv2017

The Solar X-ray Limb

We describe a new technique to measure the height of the X-ray limb with observations from occulted X-ray flare sources as observed by the RHESSI (the Reuven Ramaty High-Energy Spectroscopic Imager) satellite. This method has model dependencies different from those present in traditional observations at optical wavelengths, which depend upon detailed modeling involving radiative transfer in a medium with complicated geometry and flows. It thus provides an independent and more rigorous measurement of the "true" solar radius, meaning that of the mass distribution. RHESSI's measurement makes use of the flare X-ray source's spatial Fourier components (the visibilities), which are sensitive to the presence of the sharp edge at the lower boundary of the occulted source. We have found a suitable flare event for analysis, SOL2011-10-20T03:25 (M1.7), and report a first result from this novel technique here. Using a 4-minute integration over the 3-25 keV photon energy range, we find $R_{\mathrm{X-ray}} = 960.11\ \pm\ 0.15 \pm 0.29$ arcsec, at 1 AU, where the uncertainties include statistical uncertainties from the method and a systematic error. The standard VAL-C model predicts a value of 959.94 arcsec, about 1$σ$ below our value.

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arXiv2017

Flare differentially rotates sunspot on Sun's surface

Sunspots are concentrations of magnetic field visible on the solar surface (photosphere). It was considered implausible that solar flares, as resulted from magnetic reconnection in the tenuous corona, would cause a direct perturbation of the dense photosphere involving bulk motion. Here we report the sudden flare-induced rotation of a sunspot using the unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution of the 1.6 m New Solar Telescope, supplemented by magnetic data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory. It is clearly observed that the rotation is non-uniform over the sunspot: as the flare ribbon sweeps across, its different portions accelerate (up to 50 deg per hr) at different times corresponding to peaks of flare hard X-ray emission. The rotation may be driven by the surface Lorentz-force change due to the back reaction of coronal magnetic restructuring and is accompanied by a downward Poynting flux. These results have direct consequences for our understanding of energy and momentum transportation in the flare-related phenomena.

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arXiv2017

Science Objective: Understanding Energy Transport by Alfvénic Waves in Solar Flares

Solar flares are driven by the release of magnetic energy from reconnection events in the solar corona, whereafter energy is transported to the chromosphere, heating the plasma and causing the characteristic radiative losses. In the collisional thick-target model, electrons accelerated to energies exceeding 10 keV traverse the corona and impact the chromosphere, where they deposit their energy through collisions with the much denser plasma in the lower atmosphere. While there are undoubtedly high energy non-thermal electrons accelerated in flares, it is unclear whether these electron beams are the sole mechanism of energy transport, or whether they only dominate in certain phases of the flare's evolution. Alfvénic waves are generated during the post-reconnection relaxation of magnetic field lines, so it is important to examine their role in energy transport.

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arXiv2017

Evidence of Significant Energy Input in the Late Phase of a Solar Flare from NuSTAR X-Ray Observations

We present observations of the occulted active region AR12222 during the third {\em NuSTAR} solar campaign on 2014 December 11, with concurrent {\em SDO/}AIA and {\em FOXSI-2} sounding rocket observations. The active region produced a medium size solar flare one day before the observations, at $\sim18$UT on 2014 December 10, with the post-flare loops still visible at the time of {\em NuSTAR} observations. The time evolution of the source emission in the {\em SDO/}AIA $335\textrmÅ$ channel reveals the characteristics of an extreme-ultraviolet late phase event, caused by the continuous formation of new post-flare loops that arch higher and higher in the solar corona. The spectral fitting of {\em NuSTAR} observations yields an isothermal source, with temperature $3.8-4.6$ MK, emission measure $0.3-1.8 \times 10^{46}\textrm{ cm}^{-3}$, and density estimated at $2.5-6.0 \times 10^8 \textrm{ cm}^{-3}$. The observed AIA fluxes are consistent with the derived {\em NuSTAR} temperature range, favoring temperature values in the range $4.0-4.3$ MK. By examining the post-flare loops' cooling times and energy content, we estimate that at least 12 sets of post-flare loops were formed and subsequently cooled between the onset of the flare and {\em NuSTAR} observations, with their total thermal energy content an order of magnitude larger than the energy content at flare peak time. This indicates that the standard approach of using only the flare peak time to derive the total thermal energy content of a flare can lead to a large underestimation of its value.

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arXiv2016

Sunquake Generation by Coronal Magnetic Restructuring

Sunquakes are the surface signatures of acoustic waves in the Sun's interior that are produced by some but not all flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). This paper explores a mechanism for sunquake generation by the magnetic field changes that occur during flares and CMEs, using MHD simulations with a semiempirical FAL-C atmosphere to demonstrate the generation of acoustic waves in the interior in response to changing magnetic tilt in the corona. We find that Alfven-sound resonance combined with the ponderomotive force produces acoustic waves in the interior with sufficient energy to match sunquake observations when the magnetic field angle changes by the order of 10 degrees in a region where the coronal field strength is a few hundred gauss or more. The most energetic sunquakes are produced when the coronal field is strong, while the variation of magnetic field strength with height and the time scale of the tilt change are of secondary importance.

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arXiv2015

Correlation of hard X-ray and white light emission in solar flares

A statistical study of the correlation between hard X-ray and white light emission in solar flares is performed in order to search for a link between flare-accelerated electrons and white light formation. We analyze 43 flares spanning GOES classes M and X using observations from RHESSI (Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager) and HMI (Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager). We calculate X-ray fluxes at 30 keV and white light fluxes at 6173 Å summed over the hard X-ray flare ribbons with an integration time of 45 seconds around the peak hard-X ray time. We find a good correlation between hard X-ray fluxes and excess white light fluxes, with a highest correlation coefficient of 0.68 for photons with energy of 30 keV. Assuming the thick target model, a similar correlation is found between the deposited power by flare-accelerated electrons and the white light fluxes. The correlation coefficient is found to be largest for energy deposition by electrons above ~50 keV. At higher electron energies the correlation decreases gradually while a rapid decrease is seen if the energy provided by low-energy electrons is added. This suggests that flare-accelerated electrons of energy ~50 keV are the main source for white light production.

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arXiv2015

Soft X-ray Pulsations in Solar Flares

The soft X-ray emissions of solar flares come mainly from the bright coronal loops at the highest temperatures normally achieved in the flare process. Their ubiquity has led to their use as a standard measure of flare occurrence and energy, although the overwhelming bulk of the total flare energy goes elsewhere. Recently Dolla et al. (2012) noted quasi-periodic pulsations (QPP) in the soft X-ray signature of the X-class flare SOL2011-02-15, as observed by the standard photometric data from the GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) spacecraft. In this paper we analyze the suitability of the GOES data for this kind of analysis and find them to be generally valuable after September, 2010 (GOES-15). We then extend the Dolla et al. result to a complete list of X-class flares from Cycle 24, and show that most of them (80%) display QPPs in the impulsive phase. The pulsations show up cleanly in both channels of the GOES data, making use of time-series of irradiance differences (the digital time derivative on the 2-s sampling). We deploy different techniques to characterize the periodicity of GOES pulsations, considering the red-noise properties of the flare signals, finding a range of chracteristic time scales of the QPPs for each event, but usually with no strong signature of a single period dominating in the power spectrum. The QPP may also appear on somewhat longer time scales during the later gradual phase, possibly with a greater tendency towards coherence, but the sampling noise in GOES difference data for large irradiance values (X-class flares) makes these more uncertain. We show that there is minimal phase difference between the differenced GOES energy channels, or between them and the hard X-ray variations on short time scales. During the impulsive phase the footpoints of the newly-forming flare loops may also contribute to the observed soft X-ray variations.

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arXiv2015

Solar extreme events

Solar flares and CMEs have a broad range of magnitudes. This review discusses the possibility of "extreme events," defined as those with magnitudes greater than have been seen in the existing historical record. For most quantitative measures, this direct information does not extend more than a century and a half into the recent past. The magnitude distributions (occurrence frequencies) of solar events (flares/CMEs) typically decrease with the parameter measured or inferred (peak flux, mass, energy etc. Flare radiation fluxes tend to follow a power law slightly flatter than $S^{-2}$, where S represents a peak flux; solar particle events (SPEs) follow a still flatter power law up to a limiting magnitude, and then appear to roll over to a steeper distribution, which may take an exponential form or follow a broken power law. This inference comes from the terrestrial $^{14}$C record and from the depth dependence of various radioisotope proxies in the lunar regolith and in meteorites. Recently major new observational results have impacted our use of the relatively limited historical record in new ways: the detection of actual events in the $^{14}$C tree-ring records, and the systematic observations of flares and "superflares" by the Kepler spacecraft. I discuss how these new findings may affect our understanding of the distribution function expected for extreme solar events.

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arXiv2015

Svestka's Research: Then and Now

Zdenek Svestka's research work influenced many fields of solar physics, especially in the area of flare research. In this article I take five of the areas that particularly interested him and assess them in a "then and now" style. His insights in each case were quite sound, although of course in the modern era we have learned things that he could not readily have envisioned. His own views about his research life have been published recently in this journal, to which he contributed so much, and his memoir contains much additional scientific and personal information (Svestka, 2010).

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arXiv2014

The Radiated Energy Budget of Chromospheric Plasma in a Major Solar Flare Deduced From Multi-Wavelength Observations

This paper presents measurements of the energy radiated by the lower solar atmosphere, at optical, UV, and EUV wavelengths, during an X-class solar flare (SOL2011-02-15T01:56) in response to an injection of energy assumed to be in the form of nonthermal electrons. Hard X-ray observations from RHESSI were used to track the evolution of the parameters of the nonthermal electron distribution to reveal the total power contained in flare accelerated electrons. By integrating over the duration of the impulsive phase, the total energy contained in the nonthermal electrons was found to be $>2\times10^{31}$ erg. The response of the lower solar atmosphere was measured in the free-bound EUV continua of H I (Lyman), He I, and He II, plus the emission lines of He II at 304Å and H I (Ly$α$) at 1216Å by SDO/EVE, the UV continua at 1600Å and 1700Å by SDO/AIA, and the WL continuum at 4504Å, 5550Å, and 6684Å, along with the Ca II H line at 3968Å using Hinode/SOT. The summed energy detected by these instruments amounted to $\sim3\times10^{30}$ erg; about 15% of the total nonthermal energy. The Ly$α$ line was found to dominate the measured radiative losses. Parameters of both the driving electron distribution and the resulting chromospheric response are presented in detail to encourage the numerical modelling of flare heating for this event, to determine the depth of the solar atmosphere at which these line and continuum processes originate, and the mechanism(s) responsible for their generation.

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