Solar X-ray Irradiance with Hinode/XRT

Advisor: Aki Takeda and Suman Panda

Montana State University (MSU) is home of Hinode/XRT Synoptic Composite Image Archive ( SCIA ), which is the archive of soft X-ray full-Sun images obtained with the X-Ray Telescope aboard the Hinode satellite. Our images are posted daily to the SolarMonitor , a popular site for solar researchers to check the current solar condition.

With this archive, we can study solar activities in terms of the Sun's radiation in soft X-ray wavelengths. In this project, we will process the XRT/SCIA images taken from 2006 to date to derive the solar soft X-ray irradiance during this period. The student will learn how to process Hinode/XRT FITS data for quantitative analysis: selection of data files and area of interest, derivation of temperature and emission measure, calculation of the XRT irradiance in the physical unit comparable with other instruments. The student will also learn about data calibration applied to the original data to be used for analysis. Just like us, XRT instruments are aging during more than 12 years of operation in space. We should carefully separate the variation of the solar signals from that caused by the characteristic change of the instrument.

As a bonus, the student will have a few opportunities to watch and learn how an international satellite project like Hinode is operated. As one of US institutes participating the Hinode satellite operation, we have a duty week in July, in which we take control of the XRT observation.

You can read about a related REU project in 2018 , which is being published in the Astrophysical Journal.