The Mechanisms of Particle Kinetics and Dynamics Leading to Seismic Emission and Sunquakes

Abstract

In this paper the mechanisms responsible for observational features associated with sunquakes induced by different classes of solar flares are compared. The role of high-energy particle beams via Coulomb and Ohmic heating of the ambient plasma and nonthermal excitation and ionization is explored for different beam parameters at various atmospheric depths. On the one hand, only hard electron beams with high-energy fluxes are found producing extensive nonthermal hydrogen ionization, four orders of magnitude higher than in the quiet atmosphere. This excess ionization leads to the white-light flares associated with the seismic emission appearing simultaneously with hard X-ray emission and, consequently, to a strong increase of Ni-line emission observed as the seismic emission measured with the holographic technique. On the other hand, the ambient plasma hydrodynamic response to heating by such beam electrons forms hydrodynamic shocks just below the transition region, in the upper chromosphere, and they travel with supersonic velocity for up to five minutes before reaching the photosphere. These hydrodynamic responses caused by the beam electrons are maximized in the lower chromosphere for moderate electron beams because of their smaller Ohmic losses in the upper atmosphere compared to those for higher-energy electron beams whose bulk energy is deposited in the transition region. These shocks caused by electron beams can explain the observations of seismic emission by time – distance (TD) diagrams and the holographic method in M- and C-class flares, whereas to account for the quakes in X-class flares, high-energy quasi-thermal protons or power-law proton beams either by themselves or blended with electron beams are the most likely agents. Nonthermal ionization and excitation of lower atmospheric levels during the beam injection followed by thermo-conductive heating after the beam is stopped can contribute to the seismic signatures observed with the holographic technique caused by strong nonthermal ionization and back-warming heating occurring in the shock while it loses its energy by optically-thick radiation in the photospheric lines and continua.