Unresolved Structures in Solar Flares

Advisors: Adam Kobelski and David McKenzie

Solar active regions are composed of magnetically confined tubes of plasma, or loops. When a solar flare occurs, these loops are observed to have a short heating phase, followed by a longer cooling phase. Most attempts at modeling these structures result in loops that cool faster than observed. One possible explanation for the inconsistency is that what we observe as a single loop is actually multiple unresolved loops, with each loop heating and cooling in succession. We intend to test this by forward modeling the flaring loops to determine model loop parameters that create the observed loop evolution.

A suite of software has been created to determine the parameters required by different multi loop models to recreate the observed data. The participating student will gain experience with astronomical data use and modeling by using this software to analyze a series of flares from Yohkoh/SXT data and testing the validity of different loop models. This will involve getting initial conditions for the models from the data, and testing the model results with the time series observations, ultimately enhancing our knowledge of the heating and cooling mechanisms within solar flares. A qualifying student should have computer experience and writing skills. Programming experience in any language is desirable.