XUV lines emitted from plasma accelerated during magnetic reconnection

Summary We compute the intensity of the emission in the O VI, Mg X, Si XII, Fe XIII, Fe XVI transitions and the profiles of these spectral lines for a plasma flowing out of reconnecting current sheets that originate in the active region corona either during transient brightenings or in preflare conditions. The characteristic of these lines is a significant non-thermal broadening consistent with plasma non-thermal velocities of the order of 300 km s⁻¹. Hence, it is possible to infer the occurrence of magnetic reconnection in the solar corona by investigating the broadening of transition region and coronal lines in the sites where reconnection is presumed to take place.