Solar flare spectral diagnosis: Present and future

Abstract

New perspectives in solar diagnosis have been opened in recent years with the advent of high-resolution soft X-ray spectroscopy for plasmas forming at temperatures above 10⁷ K. The spectra obtained with the soft X-ray spectrometers flown during the last solar maximum on the major space missions dedicated to flares have allowed detailed studies of the hydrodynamic response of coronal loops to impulsive energy deposition and of the formation of the high-temperature plasma as a consequence of such dynamic effects. These studies are possible since high-resolution spectrometers give an accurate measure of both line intensities and profiles in important spectral regions, covering the emission of highly ionized heavy ions, which allow a direct determination of most of the crucial plasma parameters in the flare region. In response to the impulsive energy release in the flare region, while the intensity of soft X-ray lines increases, line profiles show large non-thermal broadenings and strong blue-asymmetries.

There have been important contributions in the understanding of the formation of the flare high-temperature plasma, as an effect of the hydrodynamic response of the solar atmosphere to impulsive chromospheric heating. On the other hand, the attempts to investigate the primary energy release and transport, on the basis of the soft X-ray spectral data, have not yet been entirely successful. Significant differences in the emitted spectra are expected at the very onset of flares for different energy deposition and transport processes, but the sensitivity of the present experiments is still insufficient to detect with good statistics the early stage of flares and, therefore, to allow a reliable discrimination. It is expected that future experiments with higher sensitivity will be of great importance for relating with less ambiguity the observed flare evolution in soft X-rays to the primary energy deposition in the flaring coronal loops.