This chapter contains sections titled: Prominences and Filaments Flares

We are presently developing a solar imager with spectrally uniform photometric response over all wavelengths between the UV and IR. Such a Solar Bolometric Imager (SBI) will be capable of accurately measuring heat flow inhomogeneities at the sun's photosphere and will provide an innovative new tool for identifying mechanisms of long-term solar luminosity variation. Our work builds on recent advances in uncooled, relatively high-definition thermal arrays. We have shown that the spectral absorptance of these arrays can be modified by deposition of gold blacks, to provide spectrally uniform response over at least the wavelength range between about 0.3(mu) and 2.5(mu) containing over 95 percent of the total solar irradiance. Our ongoing work is intended to show that quantitative photometry of the solar disc can be performed with such a modified array. We are constructing a breadboard SBI for immediate use with an 8-bit ferro- electric camera, developing a 12-bit camera to make full use of the ferro-electric array's capabilities, and optimizing our process of gold-blacking the TI arrays. Much of the science potential of the SBI could be realized in a balloon experiment. The combination of the SBI and a cavity radiometer would also constitute an excellent SMEX experiment to address a key challenge identified in the Sun- Earth Connection Roadmap recently issued by NASA/OSS.

Connections between the morphology of filaments and the global topology of the sun's magnetic field, are an important topic that seems ready for assembly into a coherent picture. We suggest that the chirality of mid-and high-latitude filaments described by Martin et al. is most easily understood if they form in evolved "Type 1" neutral lines within active region bipoles, rather than in the "Type 2" neutral lines formed at the boundaries between bipoles, where lower-latitude filaments tend to form. This interpretation removes the disagreement between filament chirality and the well-known tilt of bipolar active regions described by Joy's law, which exists if the high-latitude filaments formed at Type 2 neutral lines. Dynamical explanation of these two observed regularities probably implies quantitative understanding of the processes that govern the sign and magnitude of the alpha and omega-effects in a solar dynamo.

We present measurements of electric fields in quiescent prominences and in a small flare surge, obtained with the CRI electrograph at the NSO/SP 40 cm coronagraph, in 1993 and 1994. Our results on the 9 brightest quiescent prominences enable us to place r.m.s. upper limits ofEt < 2 − 5 V cm−1 on the component ofE transverse to the line of sight. We show that these upper limits may be difficult to reconcile with non-ideal MHD models of quiescent prominences formed in extended neutral sheets, whether or not the tearing mode instability is present. They do, however, seem consistent with ideal MHD models of prominence support. We point out also that these upper limits are within a factor 4 of the minimum value of anistropic electric field that exists due to motional Stark effect in any thermal plasma permeated by a directed magnetic field.