2-Dimensional Imaging of X-ray Bursts from Solar Loop Nano-flares in a Laboratory Experiment

The Caltech solar loop experiment produces a simple arched flux rope, analogous to a solar arcade, or a model of solar prominences which lacks a topological magnetic x-point. Despite this, the experiment scales well to astrophysical scales, and thus provides insight into the behavior of solar prominences. Previous experiments have demonstrated that the plasma arcade is highly braided. When braids snap and reorganize, they emit x-rays in a small ‘nano-flare’.^[1] A 1-D PIN diode based x-ray camera was previously used to examine average location, timing, and energy, but could not spatially locate the regions of x-ray bursts in the plasma. Here, data from a 256 channel 2-D x-ray diagnostic is presented which allows for 2-D location of the burst in the image plane. This has an advantage over previous 1-D measurements in that it permits the simultaneous measurement of horizontal and vertical location of bursts in the image. Additionally, we will co-locate these measurements with a fast-framing camera. We will examine the intensity of the x-ray bursts & their spatial variance. Additionally, multi-metal filters will be used to examine the energy spectrum of individual bursts and corroborate previously measured average energies for given experimental conditions. This work is supported by NSF award no. 2403814.

[1] Zhang, Yang, Seth Pree, and Paul Bellan. 2023. “Generation of laboratory nanoflares from multiple braided plasma loops.” Nature Astronomy 7 (6): 655-661. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-01941-x.