Previous
abstract 
Next
abstract
Session 101 - The Sun.
Display session, Thursday, January 18
North Banquet Hall, Convention Center
Recent studies indicate that stellar flares produce Ca II K line emission that is photometrically similar to the soft X-ray emission which dominates the gradual phase of Solar flares. This result suggests that Ca II K may be an optical proxy for soft X-ray emission in flares. Solar flares provide a better chance of conclusively testing this hypothesis than stellar flares due to the relative ease of acquiring numerous and simultaneous observations of the sun in the optical and high energy regimes. Despite the many Solar atmospheric and helioseismology studies using Ca II K, this hypothesis has not been thoroughly investigated for Solar flares because previous Ca II K flare studies were unrelated to the question of proxies, or limited in observed number, or had inadequate temporal resolution. We present the results of a study designed to search for optical proxies by comparing the flux calibrated Ca II K, H\alpha, and soft and hard X-ray emissions of 30 Solar flares.
