Paper

{
  "raw_xml": "<entry>\n    <id>http://arxiv.org/abs/2602.20470v1</id>\n    <title>Evolution of Spatial Complexity in Flare Ribbon Substructure and Its Relationship to Magnetic Reconnection Dynamics</title>\n    <updated>2026-02-24T02:00:40Z</updated>\n    <link href='https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.20470v1' rel='alternate' type='text/html'/>\n    <link href='https://arxiv.org/pdf/2602.20470v1' rel='related' title='pdf' type='application/pdf'/>\n    <summary>Recent three-dimensional flare models suggest that flare-ribbon substructure is linked to the fragmentation of the reconnecting current sheet in the corona. Flare-ribbon substructure can therefore potentially serve as a unique diagnostic tool for physical processes in the flare current sheet. In this paper, we describe a new method to quantify the evolution of ribbon substructure, which first extract the ribbon's leading bright front and the quantifies its morphology using the box-counting dimension and Correlation Dimension Mapping (CDM). We first test our method using synthetic observations. We then find that when the flare ribbon boundary has more multi-spatial-scale features (higher box-counting dimension), hard X-ray (HXR) emission and magnetic reconnection rates are the strongest. We also find that the flare-ribbon complexity characterized by CDM has moderate correlation with the IRIS Si IV 1402.77 Å non-thermal velocity (in the negative-polarity ribbon) and reconnection flux rates (in ribbons of both magnetic polarities). We conclude that the build-up of the spatial complexity of the ribbons at multiple spatial scales can serve as an observational proxy for current-sheet fragmentation in the corona.</summary>\n    <category scheme='http://arxiv.org/schemas/atom' term='astro-ph.SR'/>\n    <category scheme='http://arxiv.org/schemas/atom' term='physics.plasm-ph'/>\n    <category scheme='http://arxiv.org/schemas/atom' term='physics.space-ph'/>\n    <published>2026-02-24T02:00:40Z</published>\n    <arxiv:comment>21 pages, 7 figures</arxiv:comment>\n    <arxiv:primary_category term='astro-ph.SR'/>\n    <author>\n      <name>Marcel F. Corchado Albelo</name>\n    </author>\n    <author>\n      <name>Maria D. Kazachenko</name>\n    </author>\n    <author>\n      <name>Ryan J. French</name>\n    </author>\n    <author>\n      <name>Vadim M. Uritsky</name>\n    </author>\n    <author>\n      <name>Emily Mason</name>\n    </author>\n    <author>\n      <name>Cole A. Tamburri</name>\n    </author>\n    <author>\n      <name>Rahul Yadav</name>\n    </author>\n    <author>\n      <name>Benjamin J. Lynch</name>\n    </author>\n  </entry>"
}