Abstract Details

Name: Mithun N. P. S.
Affiliation: Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad
Conference ID: ASI2021_496
Title : Observation of Non-Active Region Microflares with Chandrayaan-2 Solar X-ray Monitor
Authors and Co-Authors : N. P. S. Mithun, Santosh V. Vadawale, Biswajit Mondal, Aveek Sarkar, M. Shanmugam, P. Janardhan, Bhuwan Joshi, Anil Bhardwaj (Physical Research Laboratory, Ahmedabad)
Abstract Type : Poster
Abstract Category : Sun and the Solar System
Abstract : Solar flares are events associated with the impulsive release of energy due to magnetic reconnection in the solar corona. The released energy ranges over several orders of magnitudes for different classes of flares from A-class to X-class. It is now well known that these strong but in-frequent flares cannot provide the required energy to maintain the coronal temperature. However, it is theorized that much weaker magnetic reconnection events termed as 'nanoflares' with typical energies of 1e24 erg, if happening at sufficiently high frequency all over the solar corona, may keep the temperature high. One of the ways to predict the frequency of occurrence of nanoflares is by direct observations of events having intermediate energies termed as 'microflares' that is achievable by the current generation of instruments, and then extrapolating down to the nanoflare regime. Here we present, for the first time, a comprehensive analysis of a large sample of microflares occurring outside active regions observed in the soft X-ray energy band by the Solar X-ray Monitor (XSM) of the Chandrayaan-2 mission. By combining the X-ray spectral information of these events from XSM with the imaging observations in EUV using the SDO-AIA, the frequency distribution of these flares' energy content is derived, providing insights into the total energy input via the weak reconnection events.