Observation: all of the graphs Dr. Li had me create in IDL today peaked in luminosity at about the same wavelength (somewhere around 1402.75).

When running the program provided to me (try.pro), it appears that all of the graphs I plotted before, except for one, were also produced in the image created by try.pro. These graphs were extensively labelled, which allowed me to understand what my graphs were plotting and make the peak luminosity connection. I am not quite sure how to place the final graph that was not included in those produced by try.pro. It is not a connected line of data, but rather a collection of plotted data points. Perhaps this is a graph of experimentally collected data? Perhaps it is composed of multiple sources or multiple observations?

From the following link, I was able to determine what w, l, and v mean on the try.pro graphs. Although I will need to ask what specifically line shift means. Is this like redshift? And the symbols on the upper left represent differences in time of observation, right?

Dr. Li answered all of the questions I had from yesterday. The images are now up. The last "unincluded" image of the graphs I produced, turns out to be the same graph as that plotted in the fourth image, just with different plotting specifications. Whoops. Although, I was correct in assuming that it is a graph of real observational data. The variable v represents the doppler velocity, which tells us about line shift (essentially either blueshift or redshift). And the symbols in the upper left hand corner are representative of different locations in the image of the solar flare where data for each plot was collected.

For today, and probably most of tomorrow as well, I will be working on the creation of a movie of solar images as well as a plot of the light curve in a partifular region of the sun.

After some further work, I have obtained the following results.

To begin, here is my updated video of solar images.

I am currently working on developing another plot of both the light curve of the larger indicated region (as plotted above) overlayed with a plot of the smaller regions, which contains only the flare loop, but I am currently having issues with this curve. For now, I will take a break and then come back to this.

I also created the following Gaussian fit (plotted in cyan) to one of the line profiles originally plotted on Day 2.

After a good night's rest, I returned to my previous problem and, with some help from John Unverferth, came to a few simple realizations. To begin, since my original plot is a utplot, I have to use outplot to overplot. And second, when plotting the data separately, the y-range on my second, smaller observation is much greater and thus, I must rescale my original graph to accomidate for this. The following plot is my result, where the smaller, flaring region is plotted in cyan, and the larger region is plotted in red, as before. As this light curve was developed by calculating the average Intensity over the entire pixel region, it makes sense that the flaring region is far more intense than the larger region.

Later, I also made adjustments to my previous graph, which plotted two light curves, for two different regions of the sun, on one plot. In my updated version, I learned how to use the axes procedure to display both plots on the same graph but with two respective axes. Now it is a fair bit easier to see the relationship between these two light curves. The result is shown below.

Yesterday was occupied with downloading IRIS data and doing some preliminary reading on IRIS itself, interpretting the data, and reading the data in IDL. Since downloading the IRIS data for an observation on November 9th, 2014 from 15:17 - 16:05, I have made the following three movies for the 1330, 2796, and 2832 wavelengths.

Notes: the data array for the Si IV 1403 line of the raster files is: [285, 774, 4]. The numbers in this array represent wavelength, spatial y, and spatial x (which depends on the roll angle of the spacecraft) or exposure number (relative time), respectively.

I explored iris_xfiles with both the SJI and raster files from the same IRIS data as above. There is a lot of information and I'm not sure what it all means, but it has been good to familiarize myself with the program.

I also did some more reading and experimentation on getting specific information from the fits files through the IDL console.

I've been playing around more with the IRIS data. I'm trying to figure out how to get the information I need in order to plot a line profile. So far, I have created a short movie of one of the raster fits files as it takes data over its four positions (in the case of the current data). The result is shown below.

After a lot of internet searches and trial and error, I came close to producing a line profile of the Si IV 1403 raster data, but I couldn't figure out how to get the intensity data from the file. So, after asking Dr. Li about how to access that, I was able to produce the following plot.

... I think there is something wrong... So I will ask about this in the morning.

I got a lot of answers today. The movie above is incorrect in terms of its x-axis label, so I has been fixed below, with the top-most x-axis.

Also, my line profile is correct, but it is just a plot of noise, rather than an emission line. Below, I plotted four more line profiles correlating to different emission lines. In each plot, I changed the y position, x position, file number (each taken at different times in the observation), and x-range (to eliminate the presence of noise).

One major problem arose today. When running lots of data files, it seems that my iris_load method is out of date, and stops working after running about 28 files. In order to fix this, I need Keiji to update it for me. In the mean time, Dr. Li ran a program on her computer which then allowed me to access the data from the raster files and make the following movies. There is clearly something wrong with the imaging and the final emission line I was going to make a movie of (Mg II) came up as an entirely white image, so I am going to ask about these issues on Monday.

I also made some more line profiles, so as to a create a survey of profiles. I attempted to make the process more efficient by running through the data with for loops and selecting images with an intensity of over 100, but the same issue that occurred above with the movies, occurred again with this program. So I have a few profiles that were produced before the program failed, but I hope to have more in the future. Below are a few select profiles.

Dr. Li figured out how to fix the iris_load problem! Yay!!

Here are the resolved movies from Friday. The ones above were replaced with these ones, so the older, incorrect, versions that were up earlier no longer exist. I have reposted all of them below, including the Mg one that was not produced on Friday.

For this week, I have three goals. To produce a survey of line profiles, to fit the line profiles of Si IV and Fe XXI using a Gaussian function and get the parameters (I, v, w), and to continue reading further materials. To start, here is a selected survey of line profiles.

A movie of the first 50 times for the 1330 SJI and all of the elements side-by-side is presented below. The plots are arranged in decreasing order by formation temperature. The white lines through each image indicate where the line profiles displayed below the movie where taken on the slit.

If you follow the link, you will see three sets of temporal line profile surveys for each element. These line profiles were made over three y positions of interest on the slit, for the first x position (step).

Below are all for movies for each of the raster steps. They are in order from 0 to 3.

If you click on the following two links, you will find a survey of line profiles for the second step and the fourth step of the raster files.

The following observations can be made about the line profiles in the links, when comparing them at different x and y positions:

Fe XXI:

- The primary point of interest for the Fe XXI lines occurs at 325 in the y. In each of the x positions, a small boost occurs in the Fe XXI line around the same time range (about image 30-35) in each x position. Although, in the fourth step, this boost occurs a bit earlier and for a longer range of times.

- The 21st line profile on the second step is also interesting.

- For the other two y positions of Fe, the plots are mostly noise, aside from a few stray plots with peaks in lines other than Fe.

Si IV 200:

- For the first 25 times, the Si IV lines are fairly smooth and gaussian as the slit moves across in the x.

- For the second 25 times, the Si IV lines are very broad in the first step, become more blue-shifted in the second step, and end as fairly narrow lines in the fourth step.

Si IV 325:

- For the first 25 times, the Si IV lines are mostly symmetrical and gaussian curves in the first step (asside from 21). The second step has some red assymmetry in the first 10 lines, and then becomes more symmetrical. And the fourth step jumps all over the place in the beginning half, and then becomes a little smoother, shifting toward a red assymmetry in the last few lines.

- For the second 25 times, the lines for the first step are very assymmetric toward the red for the first 5, and then become more symmetric for the rest of the times. In the second step, most all of the lines are fairly smooth and symmetricly gaussian. And for the fourth step, the lines are all slightly redshifted.

Si IV 500:

- For the first 25 times, the lines for Si IV are all fairly narrow in the first step (aside from one assymetrically red line on the 19th time). The lines start out a bit broader in the second step, one a little blue-shifted, and the rest fairly symmetric and narrow toward the end. And the lines for the last step are all fairly symmetric, with narrow peaks and broad, lower wings.

- For the second 25 times, most all of the lines for the first step are narrow and symmetric, aside from the last two, which have broader, lower wings, (the second to last of which is redshifted). For the second step, all of the Si IV lines are narrow and symmetric. And for the fourth step, the first 8 or so lines are fairly broad. The lines become narrower in the middle, and then return to narrow peaks with broader wings. All of these lines are fairly symmetric, aside from a strange line during the 29th time.

C II 200:

- For the first step, these lines are all double peaked, starting out with a fairly 1:1 ratio, and then becoming significantly steaper in the blue peak. For the second step, these lines are fairly symmetric for the first 25 times, varying in severity between the peaks. And then, during the last 25 times, the lines become more blue shifted, first with blue shifted wings, and then with a predominantly blue shifted peak. The fourth step presents fairly narrow lines, with less severe double peaks, most all of which are fairly symmetric.

C II 325:

- For the first step, these lines range from being single peaked and fairly symmetric, to being double peaked and red shifted, to being single peaked, broad, and redshifted, back to narrow and fairly symmetric. The second step shows mostly narrower, single peaked lines that are symmetric, slightly redshifted, and then symmetric again. And the final step presents narrow beginning lines, followed by broader, slightly redshifted lines, followed by narrow, symmetric lines, all of which have a single peak.

C II 500:

- For the first step, these lines vary between being single or double peaked. Most all of these lines are fairly narrow and symmetric. The second step shows similar features. And the fourth step, mostly has double peaked lines that are fairly narrow, aside from a few broad winged lines from about 26 to 33.

Mg II 200:

- As the Mg II lines progress from the first step to the fourth step, they become more and more symmetric between the peaks. In the first step, the lines become more blueshifted, as the bluer peak becomes more predominant. As we move to the second step, this same evolution occurs but to a lesser degree. Until we reach the third step where most all of the lines are equal and of a 1:1 peak ratio.

Mg II 325:

- For the first step, the lines go from symmetrical and double peaked, to assymmetrically blue shifted and single peaked, then to assymmetrically red shifted and single peaked, symmetrically single peaked, and then symmetrical and double peaked. For the second step, most all of the lines are single peaked, starting out symmetrical, blue shifting, and then returning to symmetrical. And the final step shows narrow, single peaked lines, that broaden to mostly symmetric lines with wide wings, and then back to narrower lines.

Mg II 500:

- For this last section, most all of the Mg II lines for all of the x positions are the same, aside from slight differences in the severity of the double peaks and the intensity of the lines. These lines go from an intensity range in the 600s and 700s for the first step, to 400s and 500s for the second step, to 800s and 900s for the fourth step.

Here are the results of today's assignment.

Here are the results of today's assignment.

I tried fitting some of the Fe XXI lines with gaussian curves. The program has a hard time reading through some of the noisy regions, and, in some cases, follows the carbon line instead of the iron line, so only a few fittings were made. I tried to chose areas that showed pretty clean gaussian curves around the flare region. Severe error bars are to be considered for the times before and after the flare on the temporal curves based upon the gaussian fitting.

From the gaussian curves and temporal evolutions, it can be seen that, in general, the average doppler velocity is zero. But, a double peak can be seen in the intensities of each evolutionary graph (except for the 310 y position of the third step), and for each of the temporal evolutions of the fourth step, the doppler velocity dips, to a blue shift, at the same time.

Additionally, from simple observation of the line profiles, I made the following notes:

For the 325 y position, the Fe XXI line is pretty obscured by noise. But, in thefirst and fourth steps, you can see some small bumps in the intensity around the time of the flare.

For the 310 y position, the signal to noise ratio is greatly increased and we can see a pretty clean gaussian curve around the time of the flare. There is some line blending with carbon. In each step, the intensity increasing going into the flare, peaks, and then decreases again. The peak intensity goes from the low 40s, to the high 30s, to 99, to 107 in each step respectively. All of the curves are fairly symmetric.

For the 300 y position, the Fe XXI curves are even more intense, once again being most intense during the fourth step. The peak intensity goes from the mid 50s, to the 80s, to th 60s, to the 220s in each step respectively. The cleanest gaussian curves also occur during the fourth step. Once again, all of these curves are fairly symmetric.

And for the 290 y position, the Fe XXI lines are drowned in noise for the first step, come back again, a little weak, in the second step, and then become more prominant in the third and fourth steps. The peak intensity goes from the teans (if at all), to the 20s, to the 30s, to the high 180s in each step respectively. These curves are all fairly symmetric.

Below is a gaussian fitting of the fourth step of Fe XXI for the 325 y position, along with the temporal evolution of the total intensity and the doppler velocity.

Here is a comparison of the doppler velocities over time of both Si IV and Fe XXI during the fourth step for the 325 y position. The Fe XXI doppler velocities only range from 18 to 40 time steps, where the measurements are most accurate.

The rest of today has been spent reading and working on the powerpoint for the midterm presentation coming up next week.

Yesterday's gaussian plots were clearly off for a lot of the line profiles, so today Ying showed me how to use double gaussian fitting to the fit the Fe XXI lines. I chose 8 select lines to do this kind of fitting for (most all during the time of the flare). After fitting the curves, I again made a temporal evolution plot of the intensity and doppler velocity. The results are shown below.

I also re-did most of the gaussian profiles and temporal evolutions that I did for Fe XXI in other Y positions and steps last week. The results are in the link below.

Based upon the line profiles below, I made the following comparisons between the intensities and doppler velocities of both Si IV and Fe XXI. There is something wrong with these plots though that I will need to fix tomorrow. Otber things I had problems with today will also be fixed and posted tomorrow.

These first four plots are related to the 300 y position of the fourth step.

These last four plots are related to the 310 y position of the fourth step.

Everything that was posted yesterday has been fixed and was automatically updated, so the incorrect version no longer exists. The problem I had with the follwing movie was also fixed this morning and is thus posted below. The images in this movie have a smaller field of view that is focused on the solar flare. It runs through the first 50 times and includes SJI 2796, the Fe XXI emission line, he Si IV emission line, and SJI 1330.

You can also see my first attempts at a 9 gaussian fitting of the 8 lines I have for the 325 y position of Fe XXI in the link below. The line for the background noise is clearly off, but I think the rest of the profiles look quite nice.

Here are the 9 gaussian fittings for the 6 Fe XXI lines I plan on using for the 325 y position. The last two fittings I posted earlier were thrown out based upon their signal to noise ratio and misfitting.

Here also is the temporal evolution graph between Si IV and Fe XXI for the 325 y position.

Please follow the link to see the results of today's assignment.

The following link contains the results of today's assignment.

The following link contains the results of today's assignment.

Here are a couple of test line profiles that compare the accuracy of single gaussian analysis versus moment analysis on not-so-gaussian profiles.

I also created temporal evolution plots using both the gaussian analysis and moment analysis of Si and Mg, for comparison of each method. In both cases, I used the same wavelength range used in analyzing the above two plots.

Here is a movie of the Si, C, and Mg emmission lines. The vertical lines indicate the wavelength range used for moment analysis of each of these lines respectively. The vertical lines indicate the three y positions we have been looking at during this half of the summer.

See the link below for the moment analysis temporal evolutions of Si, Mg, and C.

The movie above has been updated slightly, with a broader wavelength range for Si IV.

Here are a couple example line profiles for 353 y position, highlighting the differences between gaussian and moment analysis.

The link below contains the updated temporal evolutions for Si, Mg, and C for the 353 y position. The other temporal evolutions for the other two y positions can also be found through this link.

This second link will lead you to the intensity, doppler velocity, and line width maps for Si IV for all four steps, using moment method.

In the links below are the intensity, velocity, and width maps for Si IV, Mg II, and C II for each step.

I also fixed the temporal evolutions from day 36 and checked to see if my program was correct by overlaying the total integrated intensity on the graph.

The results from the past few days have been similar, but not quite similar enough to Dr. Li's previous results for this data. While we have both used the moment method, the way she went about determining the wavelength range and background level for each of the line profiles is different than my approach (her values change depending upon the line profile, mine remain fixed for each line profile of a certain emission line). Thus, I have now gone through her code, so as to understand what it does, and have reproduced the Si IV maps from previous days, using her code and method of moment analysis.

The results are in the link below.

In the links below are the Mg II and C II maps produced using Dr. Li's code.

Here is a brief summary of the results and analysis that can be seen from the work done throughout this summer.

When looking below the main flaring region (in the 200 y position for example), it can be seen from the line profiles of Si IV, C II, and Mg II that there is a significant blueshift of all of these elements in this region, suggesting a upflow of plasma.

Above the main flaring region (in the 500 y position), there can be seen a greater abundance of Mg II than that of Si IV or C II, indicating lower temperatures in this region. In general, profiles are much narrow in this region than in the 200 y position.

Once we get onto the flaring region itself, we begin to see Fe XXI. We also see reshifts for the first time here. Although, it seems that Mg II shows blueshift in this region, despite Si IV and C II displaying redshift (325 y position).

When we start looking at the flare itself, things break down into two cases: the flare ribbon and the flare loop.

On the ribbon, we see that Si IV is consistently redshifted, even during the decay phase of the flare. This indicates that there is some chromospheric condensation occuring during the flare, as energy is deposited at the footpoints, and then later on, during the decay phase, plasma draining occurs. We also see consistent and dramatic blueshifting of Fe XXI on the ribbon, indicative of chromospheric evaporation. The line profiles of Fe XXI are farely low in intensity and tend to become blended with many other lines in this region. This is due to several causes, primarily the density in the region, and the heating from the energy deposit.

On the loop, there are two main cases. One is a broader profile that is redshifted at the peak. The other is a narrow profile, that is centered at the peak, but is enhanced in the red wing. These two things, I am still uncertain as to their cause and meaning. What is clear, is that Si IV is much weaker in intensity here than on the ribbon, and in turn, Fe XXI is much more intense. It has some blueshifting, but is ultimately stationary (with respect to us), indicating that the Fe XXI has evaporated into the flare loop and is riding across it, parallel to us.

When doing moment analysis, more accurate results can be obtained for those line profiles that don't exactly fit the gaussian shape. Through these temporal evolutions we can see redshifts in all Si IV, Mg II, and C II plots on the flare ribbon. It seems that only Si IV is present during the later phase of the flare, possibly showing plasma draining or continued chromospheric condensation, while all three of these lines are present during chromospheric condensation. Above and below the ribbon, these lines are fairly stationary, though they do have swells in intensity and line width.

On the ribbon, a double peak in intensity evolution seems to occur in the temporal evolutions for Si IV, Mg II, and C II. Each drop between the two peaks occurs at the same time for each element (around 15:31UT). I am not sure what causes this.

Looking at the maps, it seems that the greatest width in the Si IV line profiles occurs at three primary locations/times. First off and most obviously, enhanced widths occur during the peak time of the flare. Secondly, widths are enhanced during the entire sample of time at the approximate location of the upper flare ribbon (353 y position). This seems to occur mostly during the first step, and less so in the subsequent steps, but this trend also follows through in the Mg II and C II maps. I am not sure how to explain this phenomenon...

Thirdly, in later steps, there seems to be a region below the main flare that brightens, shows a predominant blueshift, and significantly broadens the width of the line profile. This also seems to be the case for Mg II and C II. This location brightens after the main flare, so perhaps enough energy is deposited here from the main flare to cause it to heat up. Or perhaps it is the location of another active region?

After the peak time of the flare, there is also an increase in Mg II, C II, and Si IV around the lower ribbon. It is redshifted, but also quite widened, so perhaps this is indicative of plasma draining? This region is most prominant seen in Mg II.

In the link below, you will find the results of today's assignment.

In the link below contains the results of today's assignment.

In the link below contains the results of today's assignment.

Enough thanks cannot be expressed to my wonderful mentors, Dr. Ying Li and Dr. Jiong Qui, the MSU physics department staff, the other REU students, and all those involved in the execution of this REU program. My best of wishes go out to all of you.