Modeling the cooling of postflare loops

We present a model for the cooling of post are loops. In our model, we form an arcade that consists of hundreds of loops with offset formation times to simulate a rising reconnection site. An initial temperature and density is assumed in each loop, and then the scaling laws of Cargill, Mariska, & Antiochos are used to determine the evolution of the temperature and density in the loop. Once these quantities are found, they are passed through the instrument response functions for TRACE and the Yohkoh Soft X-Ray Telescope (SXT) to obtain intensities, which are integrated over the arcade to give a simulated light curve. This light curve is then compared to observed light curves from the 2000 July 14 X6 flare. We find that this multiloop, multithermal approach to simulating the are cooling fits the observed data much better than a single-loop model. There are some discrepancies between our simulations and the observed data in the decay phase of the are, however, which may be due to residual late-phase heating. We also find that the temperatures calculated by using SXT filter ratios are generally lower than the initial loop temperatures needed in the simulation to give a good fit to the observed data.