Evidence of decay of flux ratio of Fe to Fe-Ni line features with electron temperature in solar flares

Abstract

We report observational evidence of the decay of the flux ratio of Fe to Fe-Ni line features as a function of plasma electron temperature in solar flares in comparison to that theoretically predicted by Phillips (2004). We present the study of spectral analysis of 14 flares observed by the Solar X-ray Spectrometer (SOXS) — Low Energy Detector (SLD) payload. The SLD payload employs the state-of-the-art solid state detectors, viz., Si PIN and Cadmium-Zinc-Telluride (CZT) devices. The sub-keV energy resolution of Si PIN detector allows us to study the Fe-line and Fe-Ni line features appearing at 6.7 and 8 keV, respectively, in greater detail. In order to best-fit the whole spectrum at one time in the desired energy range between 4 and 25 keV we considered Gaussian-line, the multi-thermal power-law and broken power-law functions. We found that the flux ratio of Fe to Fe-Ni line features decays with flare electron temperature by the asymptotic form of polynomial of inverse third order. The relative flux ratio is ∼30 at temperature 12 MK which drops to half, ∼15 at 20 MK, and at further higher temperatures it decreases smoothly reaching to ∼8 at ∼50 MK. The flux ratio, however, at a given flare plasma temperature, and its decrease with temperature is significantly lower than that predicted theoretically. We propose that the difference may be due to the consideration of higher densities of Fe and Fe-Ni lines in the theoretical model of Phillips (2004). We suggest revising the Fe and Fe-Ni line densities in the corona. The decay of flux ratio explains the variation of equivalent width and peak energy of these line features with temperature.