Energetic electrons and photospheric electric currents during solar flares

Abstract:

Solar flares are among the most energetic events in the solar system. Magnetic energy previously stored in the coronal magnetic field is transferred to particle acceleration, plasma motion and plasma heating. Magnetic energy release is likely to occur in coronal currents sheets associated with regions of strong gradient of magnetic connectivity. Coronal current sheets can be traced by their footprints at the surface on the Sun, in e.g. photospheric current ribbons. We aim to study the relationship between the current ribbons observed at the photospheric level which trace coronal current sheets, and the flare energetic electrons traced by their X-ray emissions. The photospheric magnetic field and vertical current density are calculated from SDO/HMI spectropolarimetric data using the UNNOFIT inversion and Metcalf disambiguation codes, while the X-ray images and spectra are reconstructed from RHESSI data.

In a first case (the GOES X2.2 flare of February 15, 2011), a spatial correlation is observed between the photospheric current ribbons and the coronal X-ray emissions from energetic electrons (Musset et al., 2015). Moreover, a conjoint evolution of both the photospheric currents and the X-ray emission is observed during the course of the flare. Both results are interpreted as consequences of the magnetic reconnection in coronal current sheets. Propagation of the reconnection sites to new structures during the flare results in new X-ray emission sites and local increase of the photospheric currents We will examine in this contribution whether similar results are obtained for other X-class flares.