Multi-point study of the energy release and transport in the 28 March 2022, M4-flare using STIX, EUI, and AIA during the first Solar Orbiter nominal mission perihelion

TL;DR

This study analyzes a solar flare using multi-point observations from Solar Orbiter and Earth-based instruments, revealing complex magnetic reconnection processes and plasma dynamics during the event.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the magnetic reconnection and plasma evolution in a solar flare from a multi-point perspective, highlighting the role of sheared field lines.

Findings

Identification of nonthermal HXR source at erupting filament's anchor point

Observation of discontinuous footpoint motion during the flare

Reconnection between differently sheared magnetic field lines

Abstract

We present a case study of an M4-class flare on 28 March 2022, near Solar Orbiter's first science perihelion (0.33 AU). Solar Orbiter was 83.5{\deg} west of the Sun-Earth line, making the event appear near the eastern limb, while Earth-orbiting spacecraft observed it near the disk center. The timing and location of the STIX X-ray sources were related to the plasma evolution observed in the EUV by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) on Solar Orbiter and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on the Solar Dynamics Observatory, and to the chromospheric response observed in 1600 {\AA} by AIA. We performed differential emission measure (DEM) analysis to further characterize the flaring plasma at different subvolumes. The pre-flare magnetic field configuration was analyzed using a nonlinear force-free (NLFF) extrapolation. In addition to the two classical hard X-ray (HXR) footpoints at the ends of the flaring loops, later in the event we observe a nonthermal HXR source at one of the anchor points of the erupting filament. The evolution of the AIA 1600~{\AA} footpoints indicates that this change in footpoint location represents a discontinuity in an otherwise continuous westward motion of the footpoints throughout the flare. The NLFF extrapolation suggests that strongly sheared field lines close to, or possibly even part of, the erupting filament reconnected with a weakly sheared arcade during the first HXR peak. The remainder of these field lines reconnected later in the event, producing the HXR peak at the southern filament footpoint. Our results show that the reconnection between field lines with very different shear in the early phase of the flare plays a crucial role in understanding the motion of the HXR footpoint during later parts of the flare. This generalizes simpler models, such as whipping reconnection, which only consider reconnection propagating along uniformly sheared arcades.