Line Broadening in a Limb Flare: Derivation of Macro-turbulent Velocity Fields

The line profiles of Ha in a limb flare on 1998 November 11 appear to be unusually broadened. It is considered that macro-turbulence (or macroscopic mass motions) may be one of the main causes. We use an inversion technique to extract the probability distribution of the line-of-sight velocity in the flare. There exist some differences between the velocity distributions deduced from Ha and from Ca II λ8542, which may be because the two lines depend differently on the temperature and velocity. Since the loop density is high, we obtain a rather short cooling time (several tens of seconds) from the hot X-ray loops to the cool loops visible in Ha. Possible origins of the large scale motions are discussed.

Ha Line Polarization in the 2B/X4.8 Flare of 2002 July 23

On 2002 July 23, a 2B/X4.8 flare was observed in the Hα line spec-tropolarimetrically by the Large Solar Vacuum Telescope of Baikal AstrophysicalObservatory. Linear polarization of 3%-10% was detected in the Hα line, particu-larly where the line showed central reversal. The linear polarization is mainly radialon the solar disk and appears at the impulsive phase of the hard X-ray and γ-raybursts. It is limited to some relatively small regions of the flare. The polarizationin a limited small region (～ 4″ - 5″) changed its direction within a short period oftime (～ 10s).

A Multi-Wavelength Study of the 3B/X1.2 Flare Observed on 2003 October 26

We report results from a multi-wavelength study of the 3B/X1.2 tworibbon disk flare （S15E44）, which was well observed by both ground-based and space-borne instruments. Two pairs of conjugate kernels - K1 and K4, and K2 and K3 - in the Ha images are identified. These kernels are linked by two different systems of EUV loops. K1 and K4 correspond to the two 17 GHz and 34 GHz microwave sources observed by the Nobeyama Radioheliograph （NoRH）, while K2 and K3 have no corresponding microwave sources. Optical spectroscopic observations suggest that all the four kernels are possible precipitating sites of non-thermal electrons. Thus the energy of electron deposited in K2 and K3 should be less than 100keV. Two-dimensional distributions of the full widths at half maximum （FWHM） of the Ha profiles and the line-of-sight （LOS） velocities derived from the Ca n 8542 A profiles indicate that the largest FWHM and LOS velocity tends to be located near the outer edges of Hα kernels, which is consistent with the scenario of current two-ribbon flare models and previous results. When non-thermal electron bombardment is present, the observed Hα and Ca II 8542 A profiles are similar to previous observational and theoretical results, while the He I 10830 A profiles are different from the theoretical ones. This puts some constraints on future theoretical calculation of the He I 10830 A line.

Three-dimensional Distribution of the Escape Photons of Hα Flares

A technique for obtaining a three-dimensional distribution of received photons in Hα flares in the solar atmosphere is presented. It is well known that during flares hydrogen atoms in the chromosphere and photosphere are excited （even ionized） by the downward heating of non-thermal particles and then emit Hα photons. We trace back these Hα photons to their original layers by use of the contribution function in the theory of spectral line formation, and so acquire their three-dimensional （3D） distribution. This technique is applied to the two-ribbon flare of 2002 January 20. The atmospheric models are obtained by fitting the ＂quasi-profiles＂ with the help of the generally used model atmospheres. Since the variety of the 3D images reflects the response of the atmospheric layers to the impact of energy transport, an analysis of the development of the flare is given through a comparison of the 3D images with the 2D temperature distribution.

Measurements of spectral lines observed with Hinode/EIS as implications for coronal heating

We have measured the line widths and nonthermal velocities in 12 solar regions using high resolution EUV data taken by Hinode/EIS. We find that there exists a positive correlation between the intensity and nonthermal velocity for the Fe xII emission line as well as some other lines. The correlation coefficients decrease from the disk center to the limb. However, the nonthermal velocities of a particular spectral line do not vary much in different regions, so they are considered isotropic. In particular, we find that for a coronal loop structure, the largest widths and nonthermal velocities occur at the footpoints, where outflows appear. Based on these observational results, we discuss several physical processes responsible for coronal heating.