The interpretation of simultaneous soft X-ray spectroscopic and imaging observations of an active region

Simultaneous soft X-ray spectroscopic and broad band imaging observations of an active region have been analyzed together to determine the parameters which describe the coronal plasma. From the spectroscopic data, models of temperature-emission measure-elemental abundance have been constructed which provide acceptable statistical fits. By folding these possible models through the imaging analysis, models which are not self-consistent can be rejected. In this way, only the oxygen, neon and iron abundances of Pottasch (1967), combined with either an isothermal or exponential temperature-emission measure model are consistent with both sets of data. Contour maps of electron temperature and density for the active region have been constructed from the imaging data. The implications of the analysis to the determination of coronal abundances and to future satellite experiments are discussed.