FOXSI-2 Solar Microflares II: Hard X-ray Imaging Spectroscopy and Flare Energetics

TL;DR

This study uses FOXSI-2's advanced hard X-ray imaging spectroscopy to analyze two solar microflares, revealing plasma heating, potential nonthermal energy contributions, and complex spatial-temporal evolution, challenging simple nanoflare models.

Contribution

First direct imaging spectroscopy of solar HXRs at microflare scales with improved sensitivity and resolution, providing new insights into microflare energetics and evolution.

Findings

Plasma heated to ~10 MK with low emission measure.

No direct nonthermal emission detected, but possible nonthermal energy contribution.

Microflare evolution resembles larger flares more than nanoflares.

Abstract

We study the nature of energy release and transfer for two sub-A class solar microflares observed during the second flight of the Focusing Optics X-ray Solar Imager (FOXSI-2) sounding rocket experiment on 2014 December 11. FOXSI is the first solar-dedicated instrument to utilize focusing optics to image the Sun in the hard X-ray (HXR) regime, sensitive to the energy range 4-20 keV. Through spectral analysis of the two microflares using an optically thin isothermal plasma model, we find evidence for plasma heated to temperatures of ~10 MK and emissions measures down to ~$10^{44}~$cm$^{-3}$. Though nonthermal emission was not detected for the FOXSI-2 microflares, a study of the parameter space for possible hidden nonthermal components shows that there could be enough energy in nonthermal electrons to account for the thermal energy in microflare 1, indicating that this flare is plausibly consistent with the standard thick-target model. With a solar-optimized design and improvements in HXR focusing optics, FOXSI-2 offers approximately five times greater sensitivity at 10 keV than the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) for typical microflare observations and allows for the first direct imaging spectroscopy of solar HXRs with an angular resolution at scales relevant for microflares. Harnessing these improved capabilities to study the evolution of small-scale events, we find evidence for spatial and temporal complexity during a sub-A class flare. These studies in combination with contemporanous observations by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO/AIA) indicate that the evolution of these small microflares is more similar to that of large flares than to the single burst of energy expected for a nanoflare.