HEATING OF THE TEMPERATURE MINIMUM REGION IN SOLAR-FLARES - REASSESSMENT

As a sequel to the work by Machado et al. (1978), we discuss and evaluate the suggestions made by these authors on how to possibly reconcile the observed temperature enhancements at temperature-minimum levels in solar flares with some form of theoretical heating mechanism. After establishing the H- LTE assumption used by Machado et al., we then consider EUV irradiation, and joule heating by steady currents, as heating mechanisms. We find that, unless there are strong inhomogeneities associated with either mechanism, neither can reasonably be reconciled with observations. It is concluded that detailed, high resolution (both spatial and temporal) measurements are necessary to further our understanding of the flare process at temperature-minimum levels. © 1979 D. Reidel Publishing Co.