Vision Statement
Our goal is a transformative advance in the understanding of explosive magnetic energy release and energetic particle production in the solar corona across a range of scales, from major eruptions that significantly impact the Earth space environment to small events that may play a role in coronal heating.
Key Science Questions
What mechanisms facilitate the fast release of magnetic energy in impulsive flares? (L. Glesener, M. Swisdak)
Fast Release Mechanisms
What is the rate of magnetic energy release in flares?
Is it inherently turbulent and, if so, what are the characteristics of the turbulence?
What controls the onset of flare energy release? (S. Antiochos, J. Qiu)
Onset of Energy Release
Does the global magnetic geometry of coronal energy release sites control flare onset?
What role do ideal instabilities versus reconnection play?
How does the dynamics of reconnecting current layers at kinetic scales couple to energy release at the macroscale?
Why and how do flares transfer a large fraction of released magnetic energy into energetic electrons? (B. Chen, F. Guo)
Energization of Electrons
Why does the energetic photon (and particle) spectrum take the form of a powerlaw, what controls the spectral index and why does it typically exhibit a soft hard-soft variation in time?
What controls the partition of energy going into the thermal electrons versus nonthermal?
What physics controls the break between the thermal and nonthermal component?
What sets the upper limit on the energy gain of electrons and its time scale?
What mechanism drives energization of ions and the measured abundance enhancements of some species during impulsive flares? (C. Cohen, W. Daughton)
Energization of Ions
What is the dominant ion acceleration mechanism during flare energy release in the corona?
Why do the energetic ion spectra often take the form of powerlaws?
What controls the upper limit of ion energy gain?
Why do high M/Q ions exhibit abundance enhancements compared with coronal values?
What controls the very large 3He enhancements?
What mechanisms control energetic particle transport in flares? (D. Gary, M. Oka)
Particle Transport
Is electron pitch angle scattering and associated transport suppression required to explain observations in flares?
Is scattering required so that electrons remain in the energy release site in flares for a long enough time to reach relativistic velocities?
What are the mechanisms for scattering nonthermal electrons?
Do energetic ions scatter as they are accelerated in flares?
How does reconnection heat plasma in flares and the small events (nanoflares) that may be responsible for heating the corona? (T. Phan, K. Reeves)
Plasma Heating
What controls the temperature of the super hot thermal electrons in flares?
Do ions in flares also develop a super hot component?
What fraction of the released magnetic energy in flares goes into hot thermal electrons and ions?
How is the energy associated with ion bulk flow, including the turbulent flows associated nonthermal broadening of spectral lines, ultimately dissipated?