Four Subjects in Solar Physics from the Point of View of the Electric Current Approach

Four major subjects in solar physics, the heating of the corona, the cause of the solar wind, the formation of sunspots and the cause of solar flares, are discussed on the basis of the electric current approach, a sequence of processes consisting of power supply(dynamo), transmission (currents/circuits) and dissipation(high coronal temperature, solar wind, sunspots and solar flares).This is because the four subjects have hardly been considered in terms of the electric current approach in the past, in spite of the fact that these subjects are various manifestations of electromagnetic processes. It is shown that this approach provides a new systematic way of considering each subject; (1) the long-standing issue of the coronal temperature, (2)the long-standing problem on the cause of the solar wind, (3)the presence of single spots(forgotten or dismissed in the past) and its relation to unipolar magnetic regions and (4) the crucial power/energy source and subsequent explosive processes of solar flares. The four subjects are obviously extremely complicated and difficult subjects, but it is hoped that the electric current approach might provide a new insight in considering the four subjects.

The corona of GJ 1151 in the context of star–planet interaction

ABSTRACT The low-mass star GJ 1151 has been reported to display variable low-frequency radio emission, which has been interpreted as a signpost of coronal star–planet interactions with an unseen exoplanet. Here we report the first X-ray detection of GJ 1151’s corona based on the XMM–Newton data. We find that the star displays a small flare during the X-ray observation. Averaged over the observation, we detect the star with a low coronal temperature of 1.6 MK and an X-ray luminosity of LX = 5.5 × 1026 erg s−1. During the quiescent time periods excluding the flare, the star remains undetected with an upper limit of $L_{\mathrm{ X},\, \mathrm{ qui}} \le 3.7\times 10^{26}$ erg s−1. This is compatible with the coronal assumptions used in a recently published model for a star–planet interaction origin of the observed radio signals from this star.

NuSTAR observation of Ark 564 reveals the variation of coronal temperature with flux

ABSTRACT The hard X-ray spectral index of some active galactic nuclei (AGN) has been observed to steepen with the source flux. This has been interpreted in a Comptonization scenario, where an increase in the soft flux decreases the temperature of the corona, leading to steepening of the photon index. However, the variation of the coronal temperature with flux has been difficult to measure due to the presence of complex reflection component in the hard X-rays and the lack of high-quality data at that energy band. Recently, a 200 ks Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array(NuSTAR) observation of Ark 564 in 3–50 keV band revealed the presence of one of the coolest coronae with temperature kTe ∼ 15 keV in the time-averaged spectrum. Here, we reanalyse the data and examined the spectra in four flux levels. Our analysis shows that the coronal temperature decreased from ∼17 to ∼14 keV as the flux increased. The high energy photon index Γ ∼ 2.3 varied by less than 0.1, implying that the optical depth of the corona increased by about 10 per cent as the flux increased. This first reporting of coronal temperature variation with flux shows that further long observation by NuSTAR of this and other sources would shed light on the geometry and dynamics of the inner regions of the accretion flow.

The coronal temperature of NGC 4388 and NGC 2110 measured with INTEGRAL

Aims. We aim to measure the physical properties of the hot X-ray corona of two active galactic nuclei, NGC 4388 and NGC 2110. Methods. We analysed the hard X-ray (20–300 keV) INTEGRAL spectrum in conjunction with archival XMM–Newton and NuSTAR data. Results. The X-ray spectrum of both sources is phenomenologically well described by an absorbed cut-off power law. In agreement with previous results, we find no evidence of a Compton reflection component in these sources. We obtain a high-energy cut-off of 200−40+75 keV for NGC 4388 and 320−60+100 keV for NGC 2110. A fit with a thermal Comptonisation model yields a coronal temperature of 80−20+40 keV and 75−15+20 keV, respectively, and an optical depth of approximately two, assuming a spherical geometry. The coronal temperature and luminosity of both sources are consistent with pair production that acts as a thermostat for the thermal plasma. These results emphasise the importance of good signal-to-noise X-ray data above 100 keV to probe the high-energy emission of AGNs.