An Observational Overview of Solar Flares

By L. Fletcher, Brian R. Dennis, H. Hudson, S. Krucker, K. Phillips, Astrid Veronig, M. Battaglia, L. Bone, A. Caspi, Qingrong Chen and 7 more. 2011

719 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present an overview of solar flares and associated phenomena, drawing upon a wide range of observational data primarily from the RHESSI era. Following an introductory discussion and overview of the status of observational capabilities, the article is split into topical sections which deal with different areas of flare phenomena (footpoints and ribbons, coronal sources, relationship to coronal mass ejections) and their interconnections. We also discuss flare soft X-ray spectroscopy and the energetics of the process. The emphasis is to describe the observations from multiple points of view, while bearing in mind the models that link them to each other and to theory. The present theoretical and observational understanding of solar flares is far from complete, so we conclude with a brief discussion of models, and a list of missing but important observations.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Molecular Biology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/db50f1db592e07600a61111c7b722fa0ac4240cf

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Citations in the corpus

Modelling Quasi-Periodic Pulsations in Solar and Stellar Flares (2018, background): “For a comprehensive observational overview of solar flares see, e.g. Fletcher et al. (2011).”
Recent Advances in Understanding Particle Acceleration Processes in Solar Flares (2011, background): “8) and two-ribbon flares s discussed in Fletcher et al. (2011).”
The magnetic field in the solar atmosphere (2014, background): “and CMEs, depending on the emission and dynamics observed (for reviews see, Benz 2008; Fletcher et al. 2011; Mackay et al. 2010; Parenti 2014; Hudson et al. 2006; Webb and Howard 2012).”
Implications of X-ray Observations for Electron Acceleration and Propagation in Solar Flares (2011, background): “Interplanetary electrons and low-energy emissions are addressed by Fletcher et al. (2011), while the γ -ray emission is addressed by Vilmer et al. (2011), and the radio by White et al. (2011).”
The Spectrometer/Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX) (2020, background): “Hence, hard X-ray emissions provide ideal diagnostics of the hottest plasmas in solar flares and of the nonthermal tails seen at energies above the hottest thermal population (for reviews see Fletcher et al. 2011, Holman et al. 2011, Kontar et al. 2011).”
Space weather: the solar perspective (2021, background): “RHESSI imaging capabilities could show that flare c-ray sources are not co-spatial with flare HXR sources (Fletcher et al. 2011).”
Differential Emission Measures from the Regularized Inversion of Hinode and SDO data (2012, background): “Or is the hot emission observed in large through to micro- flares (Fletcher et al. 2011; Hannah et al. 2011) predominantly due to energetic particles or other mechanisms such as waves.”
The standard flare model in three dimensions - I. Strong-to-weak shear transition in post-flare loops (2012, background): “On the one hand, the modeled energy values are typical of those estimated in solar flares (Emslie et al. 2005; Fletcher et al. 2011) and CMEs (Vourlidas et al. 2000, 2010).”