Decades of astrophysical observations have convincingly shown that soft X-ray (SXR; ~0.1--10 keV) emission provides unique diagnostics for the high temperature plasmas observed in solar flares and active regions. SXR observations critical for constraining models of energy release in these phenomena can be provided using instruments that have already been flown on sounding rockets and CubeSats, including miniaturized high-resolution photon-counting spectrometers and a novel diffractive spectral imager. These instruments have relatively low cost and high TRL, and would complement a wide range of mission concepts. In this white paper, we detail the scientific background and open questions motivating these instruments, the measurements required, and the instruments themselves that will make groundbreaking progress in answering these questions.
@article{arxiv.1701.00619,
title = {Diagnosing Coronal Heating Processes with Spectrally Resolved Soft X-ray Measurements},
author = {Amir Caspi and Albert Y. Shih and Harry P. Warren and Marek Stęślicki and Janusz Sylwester},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1701.00619},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
4 text pages (incl. refs); 3 figures ... White paper submitted to the Scientific Objectives Team of the Next-Generation Solar Physics Mission