Bright hot impacts by erupted fragments falling back on the Sun: a template for stellar accretion | Fabio Reale (Universita` degli Studi di Palermo)

Impacts of falling fragments observed after the eruption of a filament in a solar flare on June 7, 2011 are similar to those inferred for accretion flows on young stellar objects. As imaged in the UV/EUV by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on-board the Solar Dynamics Observatory, many impacts of dark, dense matter display uncommonly intense, compact brightenings. High-resolution hydrodynamic simulations show that such bright hot spots occur when high-density plasma impacts at several hundred km/s, producing high-energy emission as in stellar accretion. Implications are discussed.