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Session 19 - The Sun.
Oral session, Monday, June 08
Friars,
A comparison of solar and stellar flare models requires information on the energy deposition into, and the energy partitioning of, flare atmospheres. Most of the flare energy is deposited in the high energy regime that corresponds to soft and hard X-ray emission. Optical observations of stellar flares, taken in lieu of high energy observations, suggest the existence of optical proxies for these emissions. Since stellar flares are observed to occur on dMe stars, it cannot be assumed that the same proxy relationship between optical and high energy emissions will occur during solar flares. We present the results of a study that investigates whether there are optical proxies for high energy emissions in solar flares. The Ca II K and H \alpha emission of 31 solar flares is compared to the corresponding soft and hard X-ray emission. We find evidence of both temporal and flux proxies in solar flare emissions. The fractional Ca II K and hard X-ray fluxes also portray a relationship analogous to the Neupert effect. An examination of the energy budgeting demonstrates that the primary source of heating for these flare atmospheres is non-thermal particles.
