The Corona of the Sun as a Star

Abstract

We study the physics of the solar corona as a whole, i.e. of the Sun as a Star, in order to understand its global features and to provide a template for stellar coronae. In this process we strive to understand the features of various structures which compose the solar corona. This process in not straightforward given the problems of observing the Sun as a whole: e.g., no recent X-ray wide-band, medium-resolution, spectrum of the Sun is avaible, unlike stars and no X-ray spectral monitoring of the Sun at various activity phases is available. The presentation will discuss our work in this field; we present the method we have devised, based on Yohkoh/SXT data, to derive the Differential Emission Measure vs. Temperature, and the X-ray spectrum, of the solar corona, and the related main results. Finally we present some new results on flares and microflares and the implications on solar-stellar coronal heating.