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Janet L. Machol

Publications and source records attributed to Janet L. Machol.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

Cross-Calibration of Chandrayaan-2 XSM with INSPIRESat-1 DAXSS and GOES-16 XRS

X-ray spectroscopic observations of the solar corona and flares provide crucial diagnostics of plasma properties and are essential for understanding the physical processes responsible for coronal heating and solar eruptive activity. The Chandrayaan-2 Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM) provides disk-integrated spectra of the Sun in the 1--15~keV soft X-ray band, enabling modeling of the thermal X-ray emission from the corona across quiet phases to intense solar flares. XSM has been operational for about seven years, starting from the last solar minimum and covering the maximum of the current Solar Cycle. The Dual-zone Aperture X-ray Solar Spectrometer (DAXSS) instrument on board INSPIRESat-1 covers the solar X-ray spectra in a similar energy range as XSM and was operational during 2022--2026. With multiple instruments simultaneously observing the Sun in X-rays, there is scope to compare measurements across instruments. Here, we present the cross-calibration of XSM with DAXSS and a broadband X-ray flux monitor, the GOES-16 X-ray Sensor (XRS). Comparisons of XSM and DAXSS spectra reveal an unaccounted attenuation in the XSM low-energy response. Supported by laboratory measurements, we attribute this difference to the effective detector beryllium window thickness being 25 microns rather than the previously assumed 8 microns. Incorporating this revision into the XSM calibration significantly improves the agreement between the two instruments, with flux measurements agreeing within ~10% in the 1--8 Angstrom band. Comparison with GOES-16 XRS measurements over a broad range of solar activity levels further demonstrates consistency, with a median flux difference of less than 10%.

astro-ph.SR

Improving Solar EUV Irradiance Modeling with Differential Emission Measure Informed Spectra

Solar extreme ultraviolet (EUV) irradiance predominantly originates from the chromosphere and corona, and variations in EUV irradiance are a significant driver of space weather at Earth, causing increased satellite drag, radio communication disruptions, and reduced GPS accuracy. Since solar EUV irradiance measurements are intermittent and inhomogeneous, models are used to fill spectral and temporal gaps, typically relying on proxy-based methods that utilize linear correlations between emission originating from similar heights or temperatures in the solar atmosphere. Proxy methods can struggle to capture dynamic irradiance variations of the solar corona during flares in part due to the relative infrequency of flares on which to derive correlations and the steep temporal temperature gradients experienced during flares. This paper presents a hybrid method for modeling solar EUV irradiance utilizing forward-modeled physics-informed solar differential emission measures (DEMs) to capture the optically-thin coronal emission coupled with traditional proxy-based correlation methods to capture the chromospheric and continuum emission. The model is trained and tested using inputs from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) and EUV Variability Experiment (EVE) and compared against a proxy-only method. The results demonstrate that including information from DEMs into a EUV irradiance model improves accuracy for flaring conditions, particularly for high-temperature coronal lines, where the model error is reduced by up to a factor of 3 for M- and X-class flares compared to a proxy-only model trained on the same data.

astro-ph.SR