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We present results of a dual eclipse expedition to observe the solar corona from two sites during the annular solar eclipse of 2023 October 14, using a novel coronagraph designed to be accessible for amateurs and students to build and deploy. The coronagraph "CATEcor" builds on the standardized eclipse observing equipment developed for the Citizen CATE 2024 experiment. The observing sites were selected for likelihood of clear observations, for historic relevance (near the Climax site in the Colorado Rocky Mountains), and for centrality to the annular eclipse path (atop Sandia Peak above Albuquerque, New Mexico). The novel portion of CATEcor is an external occulter assembly that slips over the front of a conventional dioptric telescope, forming a "shaded-truss" externally occulted coronagraph. CATEcor is specifically designed to be easily constructed in a garage or "makerspace" environment. We successfully observed some bright features in the solar corona to an altitude of approximately 2.25 R$_\odot$ during the annular phases of the eclipse. Future improvements to the design, in progress now, will reduce both stray light and image artifacts; our objective is to develop a design that can be operated successfully by amateur astronomers at sufficient altitude even without the darkened skies of a partial or annular eclipse., Comment: Accepted by Solar Physics

The broadband solar K-corona is linearly polarized due to Thomson scattering. Various strategies have been used to represent coronal polarization. Here, we present a new way to visualize the polarized corona, using observations from the 2023 April 20 total solar eclipse in Australia in support of the Citizen CATE 2024 project. We convert observations in the common four-polarizer orthogonal basis (0{\deg}, 45{\deg}, 90{\deg}, & 135{\deg}) to -60{\deg}, 0{\deg}, and +60{\deg} (MZP) polarization, which is homologous to R, G, B color channels. The unique image generated provides some sense of how humans might visualize polarization if we could perceive it in the same way we perceive color., Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; accepted for publication in Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society (RNAAS)

We present an extension of the Coronal Reconstruction Onto B-Aligned Regions (CROBAR) method to Linear Force Free Field (LFFF) extrapolations, and apply it to the reconstruction of a set of AIA, MDI, and STEREO EUVI data. The results demonstrate that CROBAR can not only reconstruct coronal emission structures, but also that it can help constrain the coronal field extrapolations via the LFFF's helicity $\alpha$ parameter. They also provide a real-world example of how CROBAR can easily incorporate information from multiple perspectives to improve its reconstructions, and we also use the additional perspectives to help validate the reconstructions. We furthermore touch on the use of real-world emission passbands rather than idealized power-law type ones using DEMs. We conclude with a comparison of CROBAR generated emission to observed emission and those produced with idealized DEM based power-laws. These results further illustrate the promise of CROBAR for real-world applications, and we make available a preliminary release of the software available for download., Comment: 18 Pages, 14 Figures, to be submitted to ApJ

Coronal holes are areas on the Sun with open magnetic field lines. They are a source region of the solar wind, but how the wind emerges from coronal holes is not known. We observed a coronal hole using the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager on the Solar Orbiter spacecraft. We identified jets on scales of a few hundred kilometers, which last 20 to 100 seconds and reach speeds of ~100 kilometers per second. The jets are powered by magnetic reconnection and have kinetic energy in the picoflare range. They are intermittent but widespread within the observed coronal hole. We suggest that such picoflare jets could produce enough high-temperature plasma to sustain the solar wind and that the wind emerges from coronal holes as a highly intermittent outflow at small scales., Comment: This is the author's version of the work. The definitive version was published in Science on 24 August 2023

We report on the closest view of a coronal mass ejection observed by the Parker Solar Probe (PSP)/Wide-field Imager for {Parker} Solar PRobe (WISPR) instrument on September 05, 2022, when PSP was traversing from a distance of 15.3~to~13.5~R$_\odot$ from the Sun. The CME leading edge and an arc-shaped {\emph{concave-up} structure near the core} was tracked in WISPR~field of view using the polar coordinate system, for the first time. Using the impact distance on Thomson surface, we measured average speeds of CME leading edge and concave-up structure as $\approx$2500~$\pm$~270\,km\,s$^{-1}$ and $\approx$400~$\pm$~70\,km\,s$^{-1}$ with a deceleration of $\approx$20~m~s$^{-2}$ for the later. {The use of the plane-of-sky approach yielded an unrealistic speed of more than three times of this estimate.} We also used single viewpoint STEREO/COR-2A images to fit the Graduated Cylindrical Shell (GCS) model to the CME while incorporating the source region location from EUI of Solar Orbiter and estimated a 3D speed of $\approx$2700\,km\,s$^{-1}$. We conclude that this CME exhibits the highest speed during the ascending phase of solar cycle 25. This places it in the category of extreme speed CMEs, which account for only 0.15\% of all CMEs listed in the CDAW CME catalog., Comment: 13 Pages, 6 Figures; Accepted in The Astrophysical Journal Letters

Our current theoretical and observational understanding suggests that critical properties of the solar wind and Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) are imparted within 10 Rs, particularly below 4 Rs. This seemingly narrow spatial region encompasses the transition of coronal plasma processes through the entire range of physical regimes from fluid to kinetic, and from primarily closed to open magnetic field structures. From a physics perspective, therefore, it is more appropriate to refer to this region as the Critical Coronal Transition Region (CCTR) to emphasize its physical, rather than spatial, importance to key Heliophysics science. This white paper argues that the comprehensive exploration of the CCTR will answer two of the most central Heliophysics questions, "How and where does the solar wind form?" and "How do eruptions form?", by unifying hardware/software/modeling development and seemingly disparate research communities and frameworks. We describe the outlines of decadal-scale plan to achieve that by 2050., Comment: White paper submitted to the Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) 2024-2033; 6 pages, 1 figure, 2 tables

It is essential that there be coordinated and co-optimized observations in X-rays, gamma-rays, and EUV during the peak of solar cycle 26 (~2036) to significantly advance our understanding of impulsive energy release in the corona. The open questions include: What are the physical origins of space-weather events? How are particles accelerated at the Sun? How is impulsively released energy transported throughout the solar atmosphere? How is the solar corona heated? Many of the processes involved in triggering, driving, and sustaining solar eruptive events -- including magnetic reconnection, particle acceleration, plasma heating, and energy transport in magnetized plasmas -- also play important roles in phenomena throughout the Universe. This set of observations can be achieved through a single flagship mission or, with foreplanning, through a combination of major missions (e.g., the previously proposed FIERCE mission concept)., Comment: White paper submitted to the Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) 2024-2033; 5 pages, 1 figure

In the next decade, there is an opportunity for very high return on investment of relatively small budgets by elevating the priority of smallsat funding in heliophysics. We've learned in the past decade that these missions perform exceptionally well by traditional metrics, e.g., papers/year/\$M (Spence et al. 2022 -- arXiv:2206.02968). It is also well established that there is a "leaky pipeline" resulting in too little diversity in leadership positions (see the National Academies Report at https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/increasing-diversity-in-the-leadership-of-competed-space-missions). Prioritizing smallsat funding would significantly increase the number of opportunities for new leaders to learn -- a crucial patch for the pipeline and an essential phase of career development. At present, however, there are far more proposers than the available funding can support, leading to selection ratios that can be as low as 6% -- in the bottom 0.5th percentile of selection ratios across the history of ROSES. Prioritizing SmallSat funding and substantially increasing that selection ratio are the fundamental recommendations being made by this white paper., Comment: White paper submitted to the Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) 2024-2033; 6 pages, 1 figure

Diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs can only be implemented successfully if proper work-life balance is possible in Heliophysics (and in STEM field in general). One of the core issues stems from the culture of "work-above-life" associated with mission concepts, development, and implementation but also the expectations that seem to originate from numerous announcements from NASA (and other agencies). The benefits of work-life balance are well documented; however, the entire system surrounding research in Heliophysics hinders or discourages proper work-life balance. For example, there does not seem to be attention paid by NASA Headquarters (HQ) on the timing of their announcements regarding how it will be perceived by researchers, and how the timing may promote a culture where work trumps personal life. The same is true for remarks by NASA HQ program officers during panels or informal discussions, where seemingly innocuous comments may give a perception that work is expected after "normal" work hours. In addition, we are calling for work-life balance plans and implementation to be one of the criteria used for down-selection and confirmation of missions (Key Decision Points: KDP-B, KDP-C)., Comment: White paper submitted to the Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) 2024-2033; 6 pages

The coronal magnetic field is the prime driver behind many as-yet unsolved mysteries: solar eruptions, coronal heating, and the solar wind, to name a few. It is, however, still poorly observed and understood. We highlight key questions related to magnetic energy storage, release, and transport in the solar corona, and their relationship to these important problems. We advocate for new and multi-point co-optimized measurements, sensitive to magnetic field and other plasma parameters, spanning from optical to $\gamma$-ray wavelengths, to bring closure to these long-standing and fundamental questions. We discuss how our approach can fully describe the 3D magnetic field, embedded plasma, particle energization, and their joint evolution to achieve these objectives., Comment: White paper submitted to the Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) 2024-2033; 16 pages, 3 figures

Heliophysics image data largely relies on a forty-year-old ecosystem built on the venerable Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) data standard. While many in situ measurements use newer standards, they are difficult to integrate with multiple data streams required to develop global understanding. Additionally, most data users still engage with data in much the same way as they did decades ago. However, contemporary missions and models require much more complex support for 3D multi-parameter data, robust data assimilation strategies, and integration of multiple individual data streams required to derive complete physical characterizations of the Sun and Heliospheric plasma environment. In this white paper we highlight some of the 21$^\mathsf{st}$ century challenges for data frameworks in heliophysics, consider an illustrative case study, and make recommendations for important steps the field can take to modernize its data products and data usage models. Our specific recommendations include: (1) Investing in data assimilation capability to drive advanced data-constrained models, (2) Investing in new strategies for integrating data across multiple instruments to realize measurements that cannot be produced from single observations, (3) Rethinking old data use paradigms to improve user access, develop deep understanding, and decrease barrier to entry for new datasets, and (4) Investing in research on data formats better suited for multi-dimensional data and cloud-based computing., Comment: White paper submitted to the Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) 2024-2033; 9 pages, 3 figures

COMPLETE is a flagship mission concept combining broadband spectroscopic imaging and comprehensive magnetography from multiple viewpoints around the Sun to enable tomographic reconstruction of 3D coronal magnetic fields and associated dynamic plasma properties, which provide direct diagnostics of energy release. COMPLETE re-imagines the paradigm for solar remote-sensing observations through purposefully co-optimized detectors distributed on multiple spacecraft that operate as a single observatory, linked by a comprehensive data/model assimilation strategy to unify individual observations into a single physical framework. We describe COMPLETE's science goals, instruments, and mission implementation. With targeted investment by NASA, COMPLETE is feasible for launch in 2032 to observe around the maximum of Solar Cycle 26., Comment: White paper submitted to the Decadal Survey for Solar and Space Physics (Heliophysics) 2024-2033; 10 pages, 6 figures, 1 table

We report on a study of the Multiview Observatory for Solar Terrestrial Science (MOST) mission that will provide comprehensive imagery and time series data needed to understand the magnetic connection between the solar interior and the solar atmosphere/inner heliosphere. MOST will build upon the successes of SOHO and STEREO missions with new views of the Sun and enhanced instrument capabilities. This article is based on a study conducted at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center that determined the required instrument refinement, spacecraft accommodation, launch configuration, and flight dynamics for mission success. MOST is envisioned as the next generation great observatory positioned to obtain three-dimensional information of large-scale heliospheric structures such as coronal mass ejections, stream interaction regions, and the solar wind itself. The MOST mission consists of 2 pairs of spacecraft located in the vicinity of Sun-Earth Lagrange points L4 (MOST1, MOST3) and L5 (MOST2 and MOST4). The spacecraft stationed at L4 (MOST1) and L5 (MOST2) will each carry seven remote-sensing and three in-situ instrument suites, including a novel radio package known as the Faraday Effect Tracker of Coronal and Heliospheric structures (FETCH). MOST3 and MOST4 will carry only the FETCH instruments and are positioned at variable locations along the Earth orbit up to 20{\deg} ahead of L4 and 20{\deg} behind L5, respectively. FETCH will have polarized radio transmitters and receivers on all four spacecraft to measure the magnetic content of solar wind structures propagating from the Sun to Earth using the Faraday rotation technique. The MOST mission will be able to sample the magnetized plasma throughout the Sun-Earth connected space during the mission lifetime over a solar cycle., Comment: 42 pages, 19 figures, 8 tables, to appear in J. Atmospheric and Solar Terrestrial Physics

We present the SWAP Filter: an azimuthally varying, radial normalizing filter specifically developed for EUV images of the solar corona, named for the Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing (SWAP) instrument on the Project for On-Board Autonomy 2 spacecraft. We discuss the origins of our technique, its implementation and key user-configurable parameters, and highlight its effects on data via a series of examples. We discuss the filter's strengths in a data environment in which wide field-of-view observations that specifically target the low signal-to-noise middle corona are newly available and expected to grow in the coming years., Comment: Contact D. B. Seaton for animations referenced in figure captions

The "middle corona," defined by West et al. (2022) as the region between ~1.5-6 solar radii, is a critical transition region that connects the highly structured lower corona to the outer corona where the magnetic field becomes predominantly radial. At radio wavelengths, remote-sensing of the middle corona falls in the meter-decameter wavelength range where a critical transition of radio emission mechanisms occurs. In addition, plasma properties of the middle corona can be probed by trans-coronal radio propagation methods including radio scintillation and Faraday rotation techniques. Together they offer a wealth of diagnostic tools for the middle corona, complementing current and planned missions at other wavelengths. These diagnostics include unique means for detecting and measuring the magnetic field and energetic electrons associated with coronal mass ejections, mapping coronal shocks and electron beam trajectories, as well as constraining the plasma density, magnetic field, and turbulence of the "young" solar wind. Following a brief overview of pertinent radio diagnostic methods, this white paper will discuss the current state of radio studies on the middle corona, challenges to obtaining a more comprehensive picture, and recommend an outlook in the next decade. Our specific recommendations for advancing the middle coronal sciences from the radio perspective are: (1) Prioritizing solar-dedicated radio facilities in the ~0.1-1 GHz range with broadband, high-dynamic-range imaging spectropolarimetry capabilities. (2) Developing facilities and techniques to perform multi-perspective, multiple lines-of-sight trans-coronal radio Faraday Rotation measurements., Comment: Science white paper submitted to the 2024 Solar and Space Physics Decadal Survey. All submitted white papers (including this one) are available at https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/decadal-survey-for-solar-and-space-physics-heliophysics-2024-2033. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2208.04485

We present EUV solar observations showing evidence for omnipresent jetting activity driven by small-scale magnetic reconnection at the base of the solar corona. We argue that the physical mechanism that heats and drives the solar wind at its source is ubiquitous magnetic reconnection in the form of small-scale jetting activity (i.e., a.k.a. jetlets). This jetting activity, like the solar wind and the heating of the coronal plasma, are ubiquitous regardless of the solar cycle phase. Each event arises from small-scale reconnection of opposite polarity magnetic fields producing a short-lived jet of hot plasma and Alfv\'en waves into the corona. The discrete nature of these jetlet events leads to intermittent outflows from the corona, which homogenize as they propagate away from the Sun and form the solar wind. This discovery establishes the importance of small-scale magnetic reconnection in solar and stellar atmospheres in understanding ubiquitous phenomena such as coronal heating and solar wind acceleration. Based on previous analyses linking the switchbacks to the magnetic network, we also argue that these new observations might provide the link between the magnetic activity at the base of the corona and the switchback solar wind phenomenon. These new observations need to be put in the bigger picture of the role of magnetic reconnection and the diverse form of jetting in the solar atmosphere., Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures

The solar wind consists of continuous streams of charged particles that escape into the heliosphere from the Sun, and is split into fast and slow components, with the fast wind emerging from the interiors of coronal holes. Near the ecliptic plane, the fast wind from low-latitude coronal holes is interspersed with a highly structured slow solar wind, the source regions and drivers of which are poorly understood. Here we report extreme-ultraviolet observations that reveal a spatially complex web of magnetized plasma structures that persistently interact and reconnect in the middle corona. Coronagraphic white-light images show concurrent emergence of slow wind streams over these coronal web structures. With advanced global MHD coronal models, we demonstrate that the observed coronal web is a direct imprint of the magnetic separatrix web (S-web). By revealing a highly dynamic portion of the S-web, our observations open a window into important middle-coronal processes that appear to play a key role in driving the structured slow solar wind., Comment: This version of the article has been accepted for publication, after peer review but is not the Version of Record and does not reflect post-acceptance improvements, or any corrections. The Version of Record is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41550-022-01834-5

The middle corona, the region roughly spanning heliocentric altitudes from $1.5$ to $6\,R_\odot$, encompasses almost all of the influential physical transitions and processes that govern the behavior of coronal outflow into the heliosphere. Eruptions that could disrupt the near-Earth environment propagate through it. Importantly, it modulates inflow from above that can drive dynamic changes at lower heights in the inner corona. Consequently, this region is essential for comprehensively connecting the corona to the heliosphere and for developing corresponding global models. Nonetheless, because it is challenging to observe, the middle corona has been poorly studied by major solar remote sensing missions and instruments, extending back to the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SoHO) era. Thanks to recent advances in instrumentation, observational processing techniques, and a realization of the importance of the region, interest in the middle corona has increased. Although the region cannot be intrinsically separated from other regions of the solar atmosphere, there has emerged a need to define the region in terms of its location and extension in the solar atmosphere, its composition, the physical transitions it covers, and the underlying physics believed to be encapsulated by the region. This paper aims to define the middle corona and give an overview of the processes that occur there., Comment: Working draft prepared by the middle corona heliophysics working group

We report observations of a unique, large prominence eruption that was observed in the He II 304 {\AA} passband of the the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager/Full Sun Imager telescope aboard Solar Orbiter on 15-16 February 2022. Observations from several vantage points (Solar Orbiter, the Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory, the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, and Earth-orbiting satellites) were used to measure the kinematics of the erupting prominence and the associated coronal mass ejection. Three-dimensional reconstruction was used to calculate the deprojected positions and speeds of different parts of the prominence. Observations in several passbands allowed us to analyse the radiative properties of the erupting prominence. The leading parts of the erupting prominence and the leading edge of the corresponding coronal mass ejection propagate at speeds of around 1700 km/s and 2200 km/s, respectively, while the trailing parts of the prominence are significantly slower (around 500 km/s). Parts of the prominence are tracked up to heights of over $6 R_\sun$. The He II emission is probably produced via collisional excitation rather than scattering. Surprisingly, the brightness of a trailing feature increases with height. The reported prominence is the first observed in He II 304 {\AA} emission at such a great height (above 6 $R_\sun$).

We investigate the effects of the evolutionary processes in the internal magnetic structure of two interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) detected in situ between 2020 November 29 and December 1 by Parker Solar Probe (PSP). The sources of the ICMEs were observed remotely at the Sun in EUV and subsequently tracked to their coronal counterparts in white light. This period is of particular interest to the community since it has been identified as the first widespread solar energetic particle event of Solar Cycle 25. The distribution of various solar and heliospheric-dedicated spacecraft throughout the inner heliosphere during PSP observations of these large-scale magnetic structures enables a comprehensive analysis of the internal evolution and topology of such structures. By assembling different models and techniques, we identify the signatures of interaction between the two consecutive ICMEs and the implications for their internal structure. We use multispacecraft observations in combination with a remote-sensing forward modeling technique, numerical propagation models, and in-situ reconstruction techniques. The outcome, from the full reconciliations, demonstrates that the two CMEs are interacting in the vicinity of PSP. Thus, we identify the in-situ observations based on the physical processes that are associated with the interaction and collision of both CMEs. We also expand the flux rope modeling and in-situ reconstruction technique to incorporate the aging and expansion effects in a distorted internal magnetic structure and explore the implications of both effects in the magnetic configuration of the ICMEs.

The "middle corona" is a critical transition between the highly disparate physical regimes of the lower and outer solar corona. Nonetheless, it remains poorly understood due to the difficulty of observing this faint region (1.5-3 solar radii). New observations from the GOES Solar Ultraviolet Imager in August and September 2018 provide the first comprehensive look at this region's characteristics and long-term evolution in extreme ultraviolet (EUV). Our analysis shows that the dominant emission mechanism here is resonant scattering rather than collisional excitation, consistent with recent model predictions. Our observations highlight that solar wind structures in the heliosphere originate from complex dynamics manifesting in the middle corona that do not occur at lower heights. These data emphasize that low-coronal phenomena can be strongly influenced by inflows from above, not only by photospheric motion, a factor largely overlooked in current models of coronal evolution. This study reveals the full kinematic profile of the initiation of several coronal mass ejections, filling a crucial observational gap that has hindered understanding of the origins of solar eruptions. These new data uniquely demonstrate how EUV observations of the middle corona provide strong new constraints on models seeking to unify the corona and heliosphere., Comment: Send requests for associated animations to the corresponding author

The Sun Coronal Ejection Tracker (SunCET) is an extreme ultraviolet imager and spectrograph instrument concept for tracking coronal mass ejections through the region where they experience the majority of their acceleration: the difficult-to-observe middle corona. It contains a wide field of view (0-4~\Rs) imager and a 1~\AA\ spectral-resolution-irradiance spectrograph spanning 170-340~\AA. It leverages new detector technology to read out different areas of the detector with different integration times, resulting in what we call "simultaneous high dynamic range", as opposed to the traditional high dynamic range camera technique of subsequent full-frame images that are then combined in post-processing. This allows us to image the bright solar disk with short integration time, the middle corona with a long integration time, and the spectra with their own, independent integration time. Thus, SunCET does not require the use of an opaque or filtered occulter. SunCET is also compact -- $\sim$15 $\times$ 15 $\times$ 10~cm in volume -- making it an ideal instrument for a CubeSat or a small, complementary addition to a larger mission. Indeed, SunCET is presently in a NASA-funded, competitive Phase A as a CubeSat and has also been proposed to NASA as an instrument onboard a 184 kg Mission of Opportunity., Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures, 5 tables, in press at Journal of Space Weather and Space Climate special issue called "Space Weather Instrumentation"

We use The Sun Watcher with Active Pixel System detector and Image Processing (SWAP) imager onboard the Project for Onboard Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) mission to study the evolution of large-scale EUV structures in the solar corona observed throughout Solar Cycle 24 (from 2010 to 2019). We discuss the evolution of the on-disk coronal features and at different heights above the solar surface based on EUV intensity changes. We also look at the evolution of the corona in equatorial and polar regions and compare them at different phases of the solar cycle, as well as with sunspot number evolution and with the PROBA2/Lyman-Alpha Radiometer (LYRA) signal. The main results are as follows: The three time series (SWAP on-disk average brightness, sunspot number and LYRA irradiance) are very well correlated, with correlation coefficients around 0.9. The average rotation rate of bright features at latitudes of +15, 0, and -15 degrees was around 15 degree/day throughout the period studied. A secondary peak in EUV averaged intensity at the Poles was observed on the descending phase of SC24. These peaks (at North and South poles respectively) seem to be associated with the start of the development of the (polar) coronal holes. Large-scale off-limb structures were visible from around March 2010 to around March 2016, meaning that they were absent at the minimum phase of solar activity. A fan at the North pole persisted for more than 11 Carrington rotations (February 2014 to March 2015), and it could be seen up to altitudes of 1.6 Rs.

NASA's WB-57 High Altitude Research Program provides a deployable, mobile, stratospheric platform for scientific research. Airborne platforms are of particular value for making coronal observations during total solar eclipses because of their ability both to follow the Moon's shadow and to get above most of the atmospheric airmass that can interfere with astronomical observations. We used the 2017 Aug 21 eclipse as a pathfinding mission for high-altitude airborne solar astronomy, using the existing high-speed visible-light and near-/mid-wave infrared imaging suite mounted in the WB-57 nose cone. In this paper, we describe the aircraft, the instrument, and the 2017 mission; operations and data acquisition; and preliminary analysis of data quality from the existing instrument suite. We describe benefits and technical limitations of this platform for solar and other astronomical observations. We present a preliminary analysis of the visible-light data quality and discuss the limiting factors that must be overcome with future instrumentation. We conclude with a discussion of lessons learned from this pathfinding mission and prospects for future research at upcoming eclipses, as well as an evaluation of the capabilities of the WB-57 platform for future solar astronomy and general astronomical observation., Comment: 17 pages, 10 figures; accepted for publication by the Astrophysical Journal

In order to utilize solar imagery for real-time feature identification and large-scale data science investigations of solar structures, we need maps of the Sun where phenomena, or themes, are labeled. Since solar imagers produce observations every few minutes, it is not feasible to label all images by hand. Here, we compare three machine learning algorithms performing solar image classification using extreme ultraviolet and Hydrogen-alpha images: a maximum likelihood model assuming a single normal probability distribution for each theme from Rigler et al. (2012), a maximum-likelihood model with an underlying Gaussian mixtures distribution, and a random forest model. We create a small database of expert-labeled maps to train and test these algorithms. Due to the ambiguity between the labels created by different experts, a collaborative labeling is used to include all inputs. We find the random forest algorithm performs the best amongst the three algorithms. The advantages of this algorithm are best highlighted in: comparison of outputs to hand-drawn maps; response to short-term variability; and tracking long-term changes on the Sun. Our work indicates that the next generation of solar image classification algorithms would benefit significantly from using spatial structure recognition, compared to only using spectral, pixel-by-pixel brightness distributions.

We investigate the coronal imaging capabilities of the Solar UltraViolet Imager (SUVI) on the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite-R series spacecraft. Nominally Sun-pointed, SUVI provides solar images in six Extreme UltraViolet (EUV) wavelengths. On-orbit data indicated that SUVI had sufficient dynamic range and sensitivity to image the corona to the largest heights above the Sun to date while simultaneously imaging the Sun. We undertook a campaign to investigate the existence of the EUV signal well beyond the nominal Sun-centered imaging area of the solar EUV imagers. We off-pointed SUVI line-of-sight by almost one imaging area around the Sun. We present the details of the campaign conducted when the solar cycle is at near the minimum and some results that affirm the EUV presence to beyond three solar radii.

Context: ASPIICS is a novel externally occulted solar coronagraph, which will be launched onboard the PROBA-3 mission of the European Space Agency. The external occulter will be placed on the first satellite approximately 150 m ahead of the second satellite that will carry an optical instrument. During 6 hours per orbit, the satellites will fly in a precise formation, constituting a giant externally occulted coronagraph. Large distance between the external occulter and the primary objective will allow observations of the white-light solar corona starting from extremely low heights 1.1RSun. Aims: To analyze influence of optical ghost images formed inside the telescope and develop an algorithm for their removal. Methods: We implement the optical layout of ASPIICS in Zemax and study the ghost behaviour in sequential and non-sequential regimes. We identify sources of the ghost contributions and analyze their geometrical behaviour. Finally we develop a mathematical model and software to calculate ghost images for any given input image. Results: We show that ghost light can be important in the outer part of the field of view, where the coronal signal is weak, since the energy of bright inner corona is redistributed to the outer corona. However the model allows to remove the ghost contribution. Due to a large distance between the external occulter and the primary objective, the primary objective does not produce a significant ghost. The use of the Lyot spot in ASPIICS is not necessary., Comment: 14 pages, 13 figures

The X8.2 event of 10 September 2017 provides unique observations to study the genesis, magnetic morphology and impulsive dynamics of a very fast CME. Combining GOES-16/SUVI and SDO/AIA EUV imagery, we identify a hot ($T\approx 10-15$ MK) bright rim around a quickly expanding cavity, embedded inside a much larger CME shell ($T\approx 1-2$ MK). The CME shell develops from a dense set of large AR loops ($\gtrsim$0.5 $R_s$), and seamlessly evolves into the CME front observed in LASCO C2. The strong lateral overexpansion of the CME shell acts as a piston initiating the fast EUV wave. The hot cavity rim is demonstrated to be a manifestation of the dominantly poloidal flux and frozen-in plasma added to the rising flux rope by magnetic reconnection in the current sheet beneath. The same structure is later observed as the core of the white light CME, challenging the traditional interpretation of the CME three-part morphology. The large amount of added magnetic flux suggested by these observations explains the extreme accelerations of the radial and lateral expansion of the CME shell and cavity, all reaching values of $5 - 10$ km s$^{-2}$. The acceleration peaks occur simultaneously with the first RHESSI $100-300$ keV hard X-ray burst of the associated flare, further underlining the importance of the reconnection process for the impulsive CME evolution. Finally, the much higher radial propagation speed of the flux rope in relation to the CME shell causes a distinct deformation of the white light CME front and shock., Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal

Seven different models are applied to the same problem of simulating the Sun's coronal magnetic field during the solar eclipse on 2015 March 20. All of the models are non-potential, allowing for free magnetic energy, but the associated electric currents are developed in significantly different ways. This is not a direct comparison of the coronal modelling techniques, in that the different models also use different photospheric boundary conditions, reflecting the range of approaches currently used in the community. Despite the significant differences, the results show broad agreement in the overall magnetic topology. Among those models with significant volume currents in much of the corona, there is general agreement that the ratio of total to potential magnetic energy should be approximately 1.4. However, there are significant differences in the electric current distributions; while static extrapolations are best able to reproduce active regions, they are unable to recover sheared magnetic fields in filament channels using currently available vector magnetogram data. By contrast, time-evolving simulations can recover the filament channel fields at the expense of not matching the observed vector magnetic fields within active regions. We suggest that, at present, the best approach may be a hybrid model using static extrapolations but with additional energization informed by simplified evolution models. This is demonstrated by one of the models., Comment: 29 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews

Using a recently developed analytical procedure, we determine the rate of magnetic reconnection in the "standard" model of eruptive solar flares. During the late phase, the neutral line is located near the lower tip of the reconnection current sheet, and the upper region of the current sheet is bifurcated into a pair of Petschek-type shocks. Despite the presence of these shocks, the reconnection rate remains slow if the resistivity is uniform and the flow is laminar. Fast reconnection is achieved only if there is some additional mechanism that can shorten the length of the diffusion region at the neutral line. Observations of plasma flows by the X-Ray Telescope (XRT) on Hinode imply that the diffusion region is in fact quite short. Two possible mechanisms for reducing the length of the diffusion region are localized resistivity and MHD turbulence.

We present observations of a powerful solar eruption, accompanied by an X8.2 solar flare, from NOAA Active Region 12673 on 2017 September 10 by the Solar Ultraviolet Imager (SUVI) on the GOES-16 spacecraft. SUVI is noteworthy for its relatively large field of view, which allows it to image solar phenomena to heights approaching 2 solar radii. These observations include the detection of an apparent current sheet associated with magnetic reconnection in the wake of the eruption and evidence of an extreme-ultraviolet wave at some of the largest heights ever reported. We discuss the acceleration of the nascent coronal mass ejection to approximately 2000 km/s at about 1.5 solar radii. We compare these observations with models of eruptions and eruption-related phenomena. We also describe the SUVI data and discuss how the scientific community can access SUVI observations of the event., Comment: Supplementary online material for several channels can be found under the event_movies directory in each of the channel directories via this: https://data.ngdc.noaa.gov/platforms/solar-space-observing-satellites/goes/goes16/l1b/

On 2010 August 14, a wide-angled coronal mass ejection (CME) was observed. This solar eruption originated from a destabilized filament that connected two active regions and the unwinding of this filament gave the eruption an untwisting motion that drew the attention of many observers. In addition to the erupting filament and the associated CME, several other low-coronal signatures that typically indicate the occurrence of a solar eruption were associated to this event. However, contrary to what is expected, the fast CME ($\mathrm{v}>900~\mathrm{km}~\mathrm{s}^{-1}$) was accompanied by only a weak C4.4 flare. We investigate the various eruption signatures that were observed for this event and focus on the kinematic evolution of the filament in order to determine its eruption mechanism. Had this solar eruption occurred just a few days earlier, it could have been a significant event for space weather. The risk to underestimate the strength of this eruption based solely on the C4.4 flare illustrates the need to include all eruption signatures in event analyses in order to obtain a complete picture of a solar eruption and assess its possible space weather impact.

We present AIA observations of a structure we interpret as a current sheet associated with an X4.9 flare and coronal mass ejection that occurred on 2014~February~25 in NOAA Active Region 11990. We characterize the properties of the current sheet, finding that the sheet remains on the order of a few thousand km thick for much of the duration of the event and that its temperature generally ranged between $8-10\,\mathrm{MK}$. We also note the presence of other phenomena believed to be associated with magnetic reconnection in current sheets, including supra-arcade downflows and shrinking loops. We estimate that the rate of reconnection during the event was $M_{A} \approx 0.004-0.007$, a value consistent with model predictions. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of this event for reconnection-based eruption models., Comment: Animation accompanying Figure 2 available at https://figshare.com/articles/SDO_AIA_131_2014-Feb-25_Current_Sheet/4052061

The statistical examination of solar flares is crucial to revealing their global characteristics and behaviour. Such examinations can tackle large-scale science questions or give context to detailed single-event studies. However, they are often performed using standard but basic flare detection algorithms relying on arbitrary thresholds. This arbitrariness may lead to important scientific conclusions being drawn from results caused by subjective choices in algorithms rather than the true nature of the Sun. In this paper, we explore the effect of the arbitrary thresholds used in the GOES (Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite) event list and LYRA (Large Yield RAdiometer) Flare Finder algorithms. We find that there is a small but significant relationship between the power law exponent of the GOES flare peak flux frequency distribution and the flare start thresholds of the algorithms. We also find that the power law exponents of these distributions are not stable, but appear to steepen with increasing peak flux. This implies that the observed flare size distribution may not be a power law at all. We show that depending on the true value of the exponent of the flare size distribution, this deviation from a power law may be due to flares missed by the flare detection algorithms. However, it is not possible determine the true exponent from GOES/XRS observations. Additionally we find that the PROBA2/LYRA flare size distributions are artificially steep and clearly non-power law. We show that this is consistent with an insufficient degradation correction. This means that PROBA2/LYRA should not be used for flare statistics or energetics unless degradation is adequately accounted for. However, it can be used to study variations over shorter timescales and for space weather monitoring., Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, 1 table

Many natural processes exhibit power-law behavior. The power-law exponent is linked to the underlying physical process and therefore its precise value is of interest. With respect to the energy content of nanoflares, for example, a power-law exponent steeper than 2 is believed to be a necessary condition to solve the enigmatic coronal heating problem. Studying power-law distributions over several orders of magnitudes requires sufficient data and appropriate methodology. In this paper we demonstrate the shortcomings of some popular methods in solar physics that are applied to data of typical sample sizes. We use synthetic data to study the effect of the sample size on the performance of different estimation methods and show that vast amounts of data are needed to obtain a reliable result with graphical methods (where the power-law exponent is estimated by a linear fit on a log-transformed histogram of the data). We revisit published results on power laws for the angular width of solar coronal mass ejections and the radiative losses of nanoflares. We demonstrate the benefits of the maximum likelihood estimator and advocate its use.

On 14 October 2014 the Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing (SWAP) EUV solar telescope on-board the Project for On-Board Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) spacecraft observed an eruption that led to the formation of perhaps the largest post-eruptive loop system seen in the solar corona in solar cycle 24. The initial eruption occurred at about 18:30 UT on 14 October, behind the East Solar limb, and was observed as a a coronal mass ejection and an M2.2 solar flare. In the 48 hours following the eruption, the associated post-eruptive loops grew to a height of approximately 400000 km (>0.5 solar-radii) at rates between 2-6 km/s. We conclude from our observations of this event that ordinary post-eruptive loops and so-called post-flare giant arches are fundamentally the same and are formed by the same magnetic reconnection mechanism., Comment: Figure 2 movie is available at http://proba2.oma.be/swap/movies/campaign_movies/2014_10_14/14_oct_eruption.mov

Continuing our series of observations of the motion and dynamics of the solar corona over the solar-activity cycle, we observed the corona from sites in Queensland, Australia, during the 13 (UT)/14 (local time) November 2012 total solar eclipse. The corona took the low-ellipticity shape typical of solar maximum (flattening index {\epsilon} = 0.01), showing a change from the composite coronal images that we had observed and analyzed in this journal and elsewhere for the 2006, 2008, 2009, and 2010 eclipses. After crossing the northeast Australian coast, the rest of the path of totality was over the ocean, so further totality was seen only by shipborne observers. Our results include measurements of velocities of a coronal mass ejection; during the 36 minutes of passage from the Queensland coast to a ship north of New Zealand, we find a speed of 413 km/s, and we analyze its dynamics. We discuss the shapes and positions of several types of coronal features seen on our higher-resolution composite Queensland images of the solar corona, including, many helmet streamers, very faint bright and dark loops at the base of helmet streamers, voids and radially oriented thin streamers. We compare our eclipse observations with a hairy-ball model of the magnetic field, confirming the validity of the prediction, and we relate the eclipse phenomenology seen with the near-simultaneous images from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on the NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO/AIA), the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager on NASA's Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO/EUVI), ESA/ROB's PROBA2/SWAP, and NRL's LASCO on ESA's SOHO. For example, the southeastern CME is related to the solar flare whose origin we trace with a SWAP series of images., Comment: 33 pages, 21 figures in 32 parts

Solar eruptions are usually associated with a variety of phenomena occurring in the low corona before, during, and after onset of eruption. Though easily visible in coronagraph observations, so-called stealth coronal mass ejections (CMEs) do not obviously exhibit any of these low-coronal signatures. The presence or absence of distinct low coronal signatures can be linked to different theoretical models to establish the mechanisms by which the eruption is initiated and driven. In this study, 40 CMEs without low coronal signatures, occurring in 2012, are identified. Their observational and kinematic properties are analyzed and compared to those of regular CMEs. Solar eruptions without clear on-disk or low coronal signatures can lead to unexpected space weather impacts, since many early warning signs for significant space weather activity are not present in these events. A better understanding of their initiation mechanism(s) will considerably improve the ability to predict such space weather events., Comment: 42 pages, 10 figures

The initiation phase of CMEs is a very important aspect of solar physics, as these phenomena ultimately drive space weather in the heliosphere. This phase is known to occur between the photosphere and low corona, where many models introduce an instability and/or magnetic reconnection that triggers a CME, often with associated flaring activity. To this end, it is important to obtain a variety of observations of the low corona in order to build as clear a picture as possible of the dynamics that occur therein. Here, we combine the EUV imagery of the SWAP instrument on board PROBA2 with the white-light imagery of the ground-based Mk4 coronameter at MLSO in order to bridge the observational gap that exists between the disk imagery of AIA on board SDO and the coronal imagery of LASCO on board SOHO. Methods of multiscale image analysis were applied to the observations to better reveal the coronal signal while suppressing noise and other features. This allowed an investigation into the initiation phase of a CME that was driven by a rising flux rope structure from a "two-stage" flaring active region underlying an extended helmet streamer. It was found that the initial outward motion of the erupting loop system in the EUV observations coincided with the first X-ray flare peak, and led to a plasma pile-up of the white-light CME core material. The characterized CME core then underwent a strong jerk in its motion, as the early acceleration increased abruptly, simultaneous with the second X-ray flare peak. The overall system expanded into the helmet streamer to become the larger CME structure observed in the LASCO coronagraph images, which later became concave-outward in shape. Theoretical models for the event are discussed in light of these unique observations, and it is concluded that the formation of either a kink-unstable or torus-unstable flux rope may be the likeliest scenario., Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, 3 movies

Solar filaments are magnetic structures often observed in the solar atmosphere and consist of plasma that is cooler and denser than their surroundings. They are visible for days -- and even weeks -- which suggests that they are often in equilibrium with their environment before disappearing or erupting. Several eruption models have been proposed that aim to reveal what mechanism causes (or triggers) these solar eruptions. Validating these models through observations represents a fundamental step in our understanding of solar eruptions. We present an analysis of the observation of a filament eruption that agrees with the torus instability model. This model predicts that a magnetic flux rope embedded in an ambient field undergoes an eruption when the axis of the flux rope reaches a critical height that depends on the topology of the ambient field. We use the two vantage points of SDO and STEREO to reconstruct the three-dimensional shape of the filament, to follow its morphological evolution and to determine its height just before eruption. The magnetograms acquired by SDO/HMI are used to infer the topology of the ambient field and to derive the critical height for the onset of the torus instability. Our analysis shows that the torus instability is the trigger of the eruption. We also find that some pre-eruptive processes, such as magnetic reconnection during the observed flares and flux cancellation at the neutral line, facilitated the eruption by bringing the filament to a region where the magnetic field was more vulnerable to the torus instability., Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, to appear in The Astrophysical Journal

We report on the first observation of a single hybrid magnetic structure that contains both a pseudostreamer and a double helmet streamer. This structure was originally observed by the SWAP instrument aboard the PROBA2 satellite between 5 and 10~May~2013. It consists of a pair of filament channels near the south pole of the sun. On the western edge of the structure, the magnetic morphology above the filaments is that of a side-by-side double helmet streamer, with open field between the two channels. On the eastern edge, the magnetic morphology is that of a coronal pseudostreamer without the central open field. We investigated this structure with multiple observations and modelling techniques. We describe the topology and dynamic consequences of such a unified structure., Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, 2 linked animations, accepted by ApJL

The Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing (SWAP) EUV solar telescope on board the Project for On-Board Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) spacecraft has been regularly observing the solar corona in a bandpass near 17.4 nm since February 2010. With a field-of-view of 54x54 arcmin, SWAP provides the widest-field images of the EUV corona available from the perspective of the Earth. By carefully processing and combining multiple SWAP images it is possible to produce low-noise composites that reveal the structure of the EUV corona to relatively large heights. A particularly important step in this processing was to remove instrumental stray light from the images by determining and deconvolving SWAP's point spread function (PSF) from the observations. In this paper we use the resulting images to conduct the first ever study of the evolution of the large-scale structure of the corona observed in the EUV over a three-year period that includes the complete rise phase of solar cycle 24. Of particular note is the persistence over many solar rotations of bright, diffuse features composed of open magnetic field that overlie polar crown filaments and extend to large heights above the solar surface. These features appear to be related to coronal fans, which have previously been observed in white-light coronagraph images and, at low heights, in the EUV. We also discuss the evolution of the corona at different heights above the solar surface and the evolution of the corona over the course of the solar cycle by hemisphere., Comment: Figure 5 Movie available at http://proba2.oma.be/swap/movies/campaign_movies/seaton_et_al_2013/fig_5_movie.mov

We present the lessons learned about the degradation observed in several space solar missions, based on contributions at the Workshop about On-Orbit Degradation of Solar and Space Weather Instruments that took place at the Solar Terrestrial Centre of Excellence (Royal Observatory of Belgium) in Brussels on 3 May 2012. The aim of this workshop was to open discussions related to the degradation observed in Sun-observing instruments exposed to the effects of the space environment. This article summarizes the various lessons learned and offers recommendations to reduce or correct expected degradation with the goal of increasing the useful lifespan of future and ongoing space missions.

The Sun Watcher with Active Pixel System detector and Image Processing (SWAP) telescope was launched on 2 November 2009 onboard the ESA PROBA2 technological mission and has acquired images of the solar corona every one - two minutes for more than two years. The most important technological developments included in SWAP are a radiation-resistant CMOS-APS detector and a novel onboard data-prioritization scheme. Although such detectors have been used previously in space, they have never been used for long-term scientific observations on orbit. Thus SWAP requires a careful calibration to guarantee the science return of the instrument. Since launch we have regularly monitored the evolution of SWAP detector response in-flight to characterize both its performance and degradation over the course of the mission. These measurements are also used to reduce detector noise in calibrated images (by subtracting dark-current). Since accurate measurements of detector dark-current require large telescope off-points, we have also monitored straylight levels in the instrument to ensure that these calibration measurements are not contaminated by residual signal from the Sun. Here we present the results of these tests, and examine the variation of instrumental response and noise as a function of both time and temperature throughout the mission., Comment: 29 pages, 29 (colour) figures, 2 tables

The Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing (SWAP) is an EUV solar telescope on board ESA's Project for Onboard Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) mission launched on 2 November 2009. SWAP has a spectral bandpass centered on 17.4 nm and provides images of the low solar corona over a 54x54 arcmin field-of-view with 3.2 arcsec pixels and an imaging cadence of about two minutes. SWAP is designed to monitor all space-weather-relevant events and features in the low solar corona. Given the limited resources of the PROBA2 microsatellite, the SWAP telescope is designed with various innovative technologies, including an off-axis optical design and a CMOS-APS detector. This article provides reference documentation for users of the SWAP image data., Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, 1 movie

The \textit{Sun Watcher using Active Pixel system detector and Image Processing}(SWAP) on board the \textit{PRoject for OnBoard Autonomy\todash 2} (PROBA\todash 2) spacecraft provides images of the solar corona in EUV channel centered at 174 \AA. These data, together with \textit{Atmospheric Imaging Assembly} (AIA) and the \textit{Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager} (HMI) on board \textit{Solar Dynamics Observatory} (SDO), are used to study the dynamics of coronal bright points. The evolution of the magnetic polarities and associated changes in morphology are studied using magnetograms and multi-wavelength imaging. The morphology of the bright points seen in low-resolution SWAP images and high-resolution AIA images show different structures, whereas the intensity variations with time show similar trends in both SWAP 174 and AIA 171 channels. We observe that bright points are seen in EUV channels corresponding to a magnetic-flux of the order of $10^{18}$ Mx. We find that there exists a good correlation between total emission from the bright point in several UV\todash EUV channels and total unsigned photospheric magnetic flux above certain thresholds. The bright points also show periodic brightenings and we have attempted to find the oscillation periods in bright points and their connection to magnetic flux changes. The observed periods are generally long (10\todash 25 minutes) and there is an indication that the intensity oscillations may be generated by repeated magnetic reconnection.

We investigate the interaction of three consecutive large-scale coronal waves with a polar coronal hole, simultaneously observed on-disk by the Solar TErrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO)-A spacecraft and on the limb by the PRoject for On-Board Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) spacecraft on January 27, 2011. All three extreme-ultraviolet(EUV) waves originate from the same active region NOAA 11149 positioned at N30E15 in the STEREO-A field-of-view and on the limb in PROBA2. We derive for the three primary EUV waves start velocities in the range of ~310 km/s for the weakest up to ~500 km/s for the strongest event. Each large-scale wave is reflected at the border of the extended coronal hole at the southern polar region. The average velocities of the reflected waves are found to be smaller than the mean velocities of their associated direct waves. However, the kinematical study also reveals that in each case the end velocity of the primary wave matches the initial velocity of the reflected wave. In all three events the primary and reflected waves obey the Huygens-Fresnel principle, as the incident angle with ~10{\deg} to the normal is of the same size as the angle of reflection. The correlation between the speed and the strength of the primary EUV waves, the homologous appearance of both the primary and the reflected waves, and in particular the EUV wave reflections themselves implicate that the observed EUV transients are indeed nonlinear large-amplitude MHD waves., Comment: 22 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Solar Physics

Observations of the early rise and propagation phases of solar eruptive prominences can provide clues about the forces acting on them through the behavior of their acceleration with height. We have analyzed such an event, observed on 13 April 2010 by SWAP on PROBA2 and EUVI on STEREO. A feature at the top of the erupting prominence was identified and tracked in images from the three spacecraft. The triangulation technique was used to derive the true direction of propagation of this feature. The reconstructed points were fitted with two mathematical models: i) a power-law polynomial function and ii) a cubic smoothing spline, in order to derive the accelerations. The first model is characterized by five degrees of freedom while the second one is characterized by ten degrees of freedom. The results show that the acceleration increases smoothly and it is continuously increasing with height. We conclude that the prominence is not accelerated immediately by local reconnection but rather is swept away as part of a large-scale relaxation of the coronal magnetic field., Comment: 15 Pages, Accepted for publication in Solar Physics, PROBA2 Topical Issue

We report observations of quasi-periodic pulsations (QPPs) during the X2.2 flare of 2011 February 15, observed simultaneously in several wavebands. We focus on fluctuations on time scale 1-30 s and find different time lags between different wavebands. During the impulsive phase, the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) channels in the range 25-100 keV lead all the other channels. They are followed by the Nobeyama RadioPolarimeters at 9 and 17 GHz and the Extreme Ultra-Violet (EUV) channels of the Euv SpectroPhotometer (ESP) onboard the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO). The Zirconium and Aluminum filter channels of the Large Yield Radiometer (LYRA) onboard the Project for On-Board Autonomy (PROBA2) satellite and the SXR channel of ESP follow. The largest lags occur in observations from the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES), where the channel at 1-8 {\AA} leads the 0.5-4 {\AA} channel by several seconds. The time lags between the first and last channels is up to 9 s. We identified at least two distinct time intervals during the flare impulsive phase, during which the QPPs were associated with two different sources in the Nobeyama RadioHeliograph at 17 GHz. The radio as well as the hard X-ray channels showed different lags during these two intervals. To our knowledge, this is the first time that time lags are reported between EUV and SXR fluctuations on these time scales. We discuss possible emission mechanisms and interpretations, including flare electron trapping.

We present two-dimensional resistive magnetohydrodynamic simulations of line-tied asymmetric magnetic reconnection in the context of solar flare and coronal mass ejection current sheets. The reconnection process is made asymmetric along the inflow direction by allowing the initial upstream magnetic field strengths and densities to differ, and along the outflow direction by placing the initial perturbation near a conducting wall boundary that represents the photosphere. When the upstream magnetic fields are asymmetric, the post-flare loop structure is distorted into a characteristic skewed candle flame shape. The simulations can thus be used to provide constraints on the reconnection asymmetry in post-flare loops. More hard X-ray emission is expected to occur at the footpoint on the weak magnetic field side because energetic particles are more likely to escape the magnetic mirror there than at the strong magnetic field footpoint. The footpoint on the weak magnetic field side is predicted to move more quickly because of the requirement in two dimensions that equal amounts of flux must be reconnected from each upstream region. The X-line drifts away from the conducting wall in all simulations with asymmetric outflow and into the strong magnetic field region during most of the simulations with asymmetric inflow. There is net plasma flow across the X-line for both the inflow and outflow directions. The reconnection exhaust directed away from the obstructing wall is significantly faster than the exhaust directed towards it. The asymmetric inflow condition allows net vorticity in the rising outflow plasmoid which would appear as rolling motions about the flux rope axis., Comment: 33 pages, 8 figures, accepted to ApJ. Minor corrections since previous version