First hard X-ray imaging results by Solar Orbiter STIX

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates the first successful hard X-ray imaging of solar flares by Solar Orbiter's STIX instrument, validating calibration and imaging methods for reliable solar flare morphology analysis.

Contribution

It shows that the calibration of STIX sub-collimators is sufficiently advanced and that multiple imaging algorithms produce consistent, reliable images of solar flares.

Findings

Imaging methods produce morphologically consistent results with SDO/AIA.

Calibration of STIX sub-collimators is adequate for scientific analysis.

Reconstructed source parameters are robust across different algorithms.

Abstract

Context. The Spectrometer/Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX) is one of 6 remote sensing instruments on-board Solar Orbiter. It provides hard X-ray imaging spectroscopy of solar flares by sampling the Fourier transform of the incoming flux. Aims. To show that the visibility amplitude and phase calibration of 24 out of 30 STIX sub-collimators is well advanced and that a set of imaging methods is able to provide the first hard X-ray images of the flaring Sun from Solar Orbiter. Methods. We applied four visibility-based image reconstruction methods and a count-based one to calibrated STIX observations. The resulting reconstructions are compared to those provided by an optimization algorithm used for fitting the amplitudes of STIX visibilities. Results. When applied to six flares with GOES class between C4 and M4 which occurred in May 2021, the five imaging methods produce results morphologically consistent with the ones provided by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on-board the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO/AIA) in UV wavelengths. The $\chi^2$ values and the parameters of the reconstructed sources are comparable between methods, thus confirming their robustness. Conclusions. This paper shows that the current calibration of the main part of STIX sub-collimators has reached a satisfactory level for scientific data exploitation, and that the imaging algorithms already available in the STIX data analysis software provide reliable and robust reconstructions of the morphology of solar flares.