Recent solar activity as observed with X-ray spectrophotometer SphinX aboard the CORONAS-PHOTON...

Recent solar activity as observed with

X-ray spectrophotometer SphinX aboard

the CORONAS-PHOTON

Janusz Sylwester

for the SphinX teamSolar Physics Division, Space Research Centre

Polish Academy of Sciences, 51-622 Wrocław, Kopernika 11

XXXIV Zjazd PTA Kraków , Solar Session, 15 September 2009 Janusz Sylwester

Obserwacje strumienia promieniowania rentgenowskiego Słońca „jako gwiazdy” w okresie głębokiego minimum aktywności

The SphinX Team

• SRC PAS Wrocław– Mirek Kowalinski, Szymon Gburek, Marek Siarkowski,

Jarek Bakala, Zbigniew Kordylewski, Piotr Podgorski, Barbara Sylwester, Anna Kepa, Witold Trzebiński

• P.N. Lebedev Physical Institute, Moscow– Sergey Kuzin-TESIS PI, Andrei Pertsov,

Sergey Bogaczev• Astronomical Institute, Ondrejov

– Frantisek Farnik• Astronomical Observatory, Palermo

• Fabio Reale, Alfonso Collura• University College, London

– Ken Phillips


http://www.ucl.ac.uk/

SphinX: Solar Photometer in X-rays, PI: SRC-PAS

PointingSemi-Three axis stabilised

Mass ~2500 kg, 8.2 GB/day

http://www.cbk.pan.wroc.pl/body/publikacje/2008/SphinX.pdf

Launched 30 Jan. 2009 at 13:30 UT

from Plesetsk Cosmodrome

http://www.tesis.lebedev.ru/TESIS with

SphinX


CORONAS PHOTON

http://www.cbk.pan.wroc.pl/body/publikacje/2008/SphinX.pdf

The orbit

CORONAS-F

96 min550km ,

82.5 deg.Polar orbit

Life ~7 years

EncounteredSAA

~1000 cts/s&

Polar ovals~100 cts/s

4 times/96 min


SphinXPolish concept, design & manufacture

Measures the X-ray fluence of the Sun 0.85 –

15 keV with unprecedented

– Time resolution ~0.00001 s

– Sensitivity 100 x better than GOES XRM – the standard for 30+years

– Energy resolution

3x RHESSI (NASA)


The construction • EUV filters (doubly aluminized Mylar)

• Photometer

– Collimators (+-2.5 deg)

– Three apertures

– D1, D2, D3

• Shutter

– Stepper motor

• FFU

– Filters

– Targets

– D4

• Electronics

– Front end Amptek

– Digital „our”

• Controller

– Software

– reprogramming

• Heat sink

• Alignment mirror

Total cost of the project ~ 1 mln PLN KBN T12 grant XXXIV Zjazd PTA Kraków , Solar Session, 15 September 2009 Janusz Sylwester

Measurement channels

φ: 5 mmA: 20.4mm2

8 μsUp to

25 000 cts/sFWHM: 490 eV

P h o t o m e t r i c FFU

φ: 4 mmA: 0.50 mm2

25 μsUp to


φ: 4 mmA: 0.0052 mm2

25 μsUp to


φ: 4 mmA: 13.0 mm2

25 μsUp to


Detectors (four units): 256/1024 energy binsAmptek, Peltier cooled (-50 deg C below the

support T) Si PIN diodes. Detectors’ support plate passively

cooled through the heat sink pipe to the external radiator

Photon arrival time measured to within 2μs (in Time Stamping Mode)


How performance looks from the tests

BESSY Berlin Synchrotron:- All detectors’ linearity: perfect (0.1% ) over 0.8-14.5 keV; & dynamic range 104.- absolute response known to better than 5% against reference synchrotron source.

- pile-up matrices known as measured from X-ray 4 crystal monochromator spectra

obtained at 8 energies between 1.5 and 8 keV

The BESSY synchrotron input spectrum (red) with overplotted response of SphinX

D2 detector (black). Nominal effective areas have been used. The agreement is

better than 5% in the energy band where SphinX detectors are the most sensitive.


GOES X class range to be extended down

10-6

W/m2

10-7

10-8

10-9

10-10

10-11

Solar X-ray flux remains at background levels: i.e. Max Millenium message

SphinX detection threshold

A = 10-8 W/m2

S = 10-9 W/m2

Q = 10-10 W/m2

SA

A

S/C night


New X-ray classes

• We are introducing new „classes” of X-ray solar variability, below GOES A1.0– A = 10-8 W/m2 (present lowest)– S = 10-9 W/m2

– Q = 10-10 W/m2

• SphinX in its D1 channel is capable to observe events 100 x less intense than GOES– Most of variability since the launch is observed to

happen below the GOES delectability threshold


Solar activity: longer-term only around 80 flares,detected by GOES, among them C2.7 on 6 July

2009 and triple B on March 26, 2009

GOES detection threshold

Since Launch: GOES 80 events, SphinX 550 events

The Lowest observed level

SphinX D2 record cts/s

Long S/Cday


Determination of absolute levels of X-ray solar luminosity E > 1 keV

D1- DGI 1s

D1

D2

/E2 E1


X-ray fluence at E > 1 keV

Example: for data set No. 50Te 1.71 MK [ 1.69, 1.72 ]EM 6.2 [ 5.7 , 6.7] 1047 cm-3

Flux [1 - 15 keV] 1.4 10-8 W/m2Flux GOES [1 – 8 Å] 4.2 10-10 W/m2

Histogram of T values

D1 rate

Temperature

Emission Measure


Thermodynamic Measure

D1 rate

D2

rate

1.6 1.8 2.0 MK

Instrument heating

TESIS images (courtesy Sergey Bogaczev FIAN)

2009 02 20 18:27:42 171 Å2009 02 20 18:28:42 304 Å


~80 000 K ~1 MK

Longer exposure: ~18 hours

Counts below 3 keV ~ 1 mln

Counts above 3 keV ~ 3000

Ratio: 0.003Any coronal heating model should „obey” this measurement

from now on


http://www.cbk.pan.wroc.pl/sphinxnews/?page_id=25


http://www.cbk.pan.wroc.pl/sphinxnews/?page_id=25

Example catalogue page

D1

D2

bcg


Summary• Two components on the lightcurves:

– Quasi steady X-ray intensities enhanced when AR are present– The lowest quasi-steady state level, when no AR are present, is

also observed in D2, this level is still fluctuating on a 5 min time scale study is in progress.

– Flares are seen on-top of this basal variability.– Flare „enhancements” are being detected from amplitudes

above ~ 0.05 dex.– Both short and LDE types of events are present „without the

sunspots”• The Sun is the weakest X-ray star within 7 parsecs (Schmitt et

al., 1995, ApJ, 450, 392) – with our new estimated luminosity at LX = 1.3 × 1018 W 100 x

less α Cen A., 47 x less previous estimates (Judge et al., 2003, ApJ, 593, 534)

– Luminosity in the 1—300 Å is 8.0 × 1025 erg s-1, a value which is

of interest for heating the Earth’s atmosphere, much below present estimates

– Thermal energy content of the solar corona is 2 × 1030 erg


The End

Please have a look at the posterBarbara Sylwester, Janusz Sylwester, Marek Siarkowski

Zakład Fizyki Słońca CBK PAN Wrocław:

"Interpretacja widm uzyskanych za pomocą polskiego spektrofotometru SphinX"


Compilation of SphinX flare catalogue

SOLAR CORONAL LOOPS WORKSHOP IV , Wednesday, July 1, 2009 Janusz Sylwester: Activity - SphinX

Flare statistics – based on SphinX catalogue interpretation (provisional)

Flare amplitude vs the occurence times

of events

Increasing trend is noticeable

GOES detection Threshold


30 April 2009 10:42 A3.1 flare

XRT Hinode

EIT SOHO 195 Å


Spectra

E1 E2

maximum

decay

Flare evolution on T-EM diagramsee poster B. Sylwester et al.

T

EM

ThM = T * sqrt(EM)

Diagnostic Diagram Jakimiec, J.; Sylwester, B.

; Sylwester, J.; Serio, S.; Peres, G.; Reale, F. 1992A&A...253..269

Jakimiec, J.; Sylwester, B.; Sylwester, J.; Mewe, R.; Peres, G., 1986AdSpR...6..237J

Palermo-Harvard CodePeres et al., 1982

From HXIS

SS RTV: 2 Log T – ½ Log EM = ½ Log(L/2A) - 6.145

L

AeH

CL

AeH

C

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/author_form?author=Jakimiec,+J&fullauthor=Jakimiec,%20J.&charset=UTF-8&db_key=AST



http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/author_form?author=Sylwester,+B&fullauthor=Sylwester,%20B.&charset=UTF-8&db_key=AST

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/author_form?author=Sylwester,+J&fullauthor=Sylwester,%20J.&charset=UTF-8&db_key=AST

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/author_form?author=Serio,+S&fullauthor=Serio,%20S.&charset=UTF-8&db_key=AST

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/author_form?author=Peres,+G&fullauthor=Peres,%20G.&charset=UTF-8&db_key=AST

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/author_form?author=Reale,+F&fullauthor=Reale,%20F.&charset=UTF-8&db_key=AST


http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/author_form?author=Sylwester,+B&fullauthor=Sylwester,%20B.&charset=UTF-8&db_key=AST

Diagnostic diagram based on GOES

Warning

Sylwester, J.; Sylwester, B.; Phillips, K. J. H.; Kepa, A.

06 June 2009 B2.6 flare

XRT Hinode


TESIS 171 Å

Spectra

E1 E2

maximum

decay


Flare evolution on T-EM diagramsee poster B. Sylwester et al.

T

EM

ThM = T * sqrt(EM)

Conclusions

• SphinX will provide flare flags to Coronas (testing algorithms in orbit)

• Sphinx measurements allow– To See solar X-ray variability from the bottom level up to

X20– To Determine absolute fluxes above 1 keV, each few s (also

GOES in standard bands)– To Study photon arrival times statistics (needs some more

work on the instrument operation)– To Study small flare statistics

• Will supplement RHESSI spectra towards lower energies

• Will provide the most exhaustive flare catalogue


Recent solar activity as observed with X-ray spectrophotometer SphinX aboard the CORONAS-PHOTON...

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