Investigation of Impulsive Heating of Active Regions in the Solar Corona

THE GOAL OF THIS PROPOSAL IS TO INVESTIGATE THE SOLAR CORONAL HEATING PROBLEM SPECIFICALLY THE ROLE OF SMALL SOLAR FLARES IN EXPLAINING HOW THE SUN S CORONA IS CONSISTENTLY HEATED TO MILLIONS OF DEGREES. TO THIS AIM WE WILL OBSERVE SOLAR ACTIVE REGIONS WITH LONG ENOUGH INTEGRATIONS TO DETECT FAINT SIGNATURES OF SMALL FLARES AND WILL QUANTIFY THEIR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HEATING OF THESE PARTICULAR REGIONS. WE WILL ALSO COMBINE NUSTAR MEASUREMENTS WITH THOSE FROM NOVEL SOLAR-OBSERVING TELESCOPES OPERATING IN THE EXTREME ULTRAVIOLET AND/ OR X-RAY RANGES TO OBTAIN THE MOST SENSITIVE MEASUREMENTS TO DATE OF FLARE HEATING OF THE CORONA. WITH THESE COORDINATED OBSERVATIONS WE WILL SEARCH FOR THE WEAK HIGH-TEMPERATURE ( 5MK) AND NON-THERMAL EMISSION EXPECTED FROM IMPULSIVE ENERGY RELEASE MODELS. IF THERE ARE SMALL DISTINCT FLARES DURING THESE TIMES WE WILL ALSO DETERMINE WHETHER THEY HAVE SIMILAR PROPERTIES AND SO ARE SCALED DOWN VERSIONS OF LARGER FLARES.