Extremely energetic EUV late phase of a pair of C-class flares caused by a non-eruptive sigmoid

TL;DR

This study reports an extremely energetic EUV late phase in a pair of C-class solar flares caused by a non-eruptive sigmoid, revealing new insights into flare energetics and magnetic reconnection processes.

Contribution

It demonstrates that a non-eruptive sigmoid can produce an exceptionally energetic EUV late phase, driven by magnetic reconnection and rapid plasma heating.

Findings

EUV late phase releases 4.2 times more energy than main flare peaks.

Non-eruptive sigmoid reaches temperatures over 10^7 K before cooling.

Magnetic reconnection forms the sigmoid via J-shaped loop interactions.

Abstract

The EUV late phase is the second increase of the irradiance of the warm coronal lines during solar flares, and has a crucial impact on the Earth's ionosphere. In this paper, we report on the extremely energetic EUV late phase of a pair of C-class flares (SOL2012-06-17T17:26:11) observed on 2012 June 17 in NOAA active region 11504 by the \textit{Atmospheric Imaging Assembly} (AIA) instrument on board the \textit{Solar Dynamics Observatory} (SDO). The light curves integrated over the flaring region show that a factor of 4.2 more energy is released in the ``warm'' (2$-$3$\times 10^6$~K) temperature passbands (e.g. AIA 335 \AA) during the late phase than during the main peaks. The origin of the emission in this extremely energetic EUV late phase is a non-eruptive sigmoid situated in a multi-polar magnetic field configuration, which is rapidly energised by C-class flares. The sigmoid plasma appears to reach temperatures in excess of $10^7$~K, before cooling to produce the EUV late-phase emission. This is seen in high-temperature passbands (e.g. AIA 131 \AA) and by using differential emission measure analysis. Magnetic extrapolations indicate that the sigmoid is consistent with formation by magnetic reconnection between previously existing J-shaped loops. The sigmoid experienced a fast and a slow cooling stages, both of which were dominated by conductive cooling. The estimated total cooling time of the sigmoid is shorter than the observed value. So, we proposed that the non-eruptive sigmoid, heated by the continuous magnetic reconnection, leads to the extremely energetic EUV late phase.