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The challenges of the models of solar flares

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Abstract

The challenges of ‘standard’ model of solar flares motivated by new observations with the spacecrafts and ground-based telescopes are presented. The most important problems are in situ heating of photospheric and chromospheric loop footpoints up to the coronal temperatures without precipitating particle beams accelerated in the corona, and the sunquakes which are unlikely to be explained by the impact of highenergy particles producing hard X-ray emission. There is also the long-standing ‘number problem’ in the physics of solar flares. It is shown that modern observations favored an important role of the electric currents in the energy release processes in the low solar atmosphere. Particle acceleration mechanism in the electric fields driven by the magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor instability in the chromosphere is proposed. The electric current value I ≥ 1010 A, needed for the excitation of super-Dreicer electric fields in the chromosphere is determined. It is shown that both Joule dissipation of the electric currents and the particles accelerated in the chromosphere can be responsible for in situ heating of the low solar atmosphere. Alternative model of the solar flare based on the analogy between the flaring loop and an equivalent electric circuit which is good tool for the electric current diagnostics is presented. Interaction of a current-carrying loop with the partially-ionized plasma of prominence in the context of particle acceleration is considered. The role of plasma radiation mechanism in the sub-THz emission from the chromosphere is discussed.

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  1. Pulkovo Observatory, St. Petersburg, Russia

    A. V. Stepanov

  2. Institute of Applied Physics, Nizhny Novgorod, Russia

    V. V. Zaitsev

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  1. A. V. Stepanov
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Stepanov, A.V., Zaitsev, V.V. The challenges of the models of solar flares. Geomagn. Aeron. 56, 952–971 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1134/S001679321608020X

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