Solar Flare Spectroscopy

Abstract

This review covers the techniques, observations, and inferences of solar flare spectroscopy. It is not a spectroscopist's view of solar flares but rather a solar flare physicist's view of spectroscopy. Spectroscopy is carried out across the electromagnetic spectrum, but this review emphasizes the optical to soft X-ray part of the spectrum and discusses results from spectroscopy applied to the preflare, impulsive, and gradual phases, as well as a few highlights from modeling. ▪ The main spectroscopic signatures of the preflare phase are line broadening in optically thin ultraviolet to soft X-ray lines and small Doppler shifts in active region filaments that are becoming unstable. ▪ In the impulsive phase, fast upflows of heated plasma into the corona and slow downflows of cooler chromospheric plasma take place at the sites of strong chromospheric energy deposition. ▪ Radiation-hydrodynamic modeling of optically thick spectral lines gives a picture of an impulsive-phase chromosphere with a dense, heated layer deep in the atmosphere and an overlying, downward moving condensation that is partially optically thin. ▪ Gradual-phase observations show us the heated coronal plasma cooling and draining but also provide evidence for ongoing slow energy input and slow upflows in other locations. ▪ Interesting hints of non-Maxwellian and nonequilibrium plasmas have been found, along with possible evidence of plasma turbulence from line broadening.