Hydrogen recombination continuum as the radiative model for stellar optical flares

A rather tidy view of what the Archivist thinks of as a kind of antidote to the CSHKP plague. Reconnection, yes, but now in a much more complicated geometry originating in a multipolar photospheric domain structure. There might be three flavors, actually: the interior reconnection might resemble CSHKP, and it has ribbons (yellow), but the toon does not show open field lines feeding those reconnected loops. There is also reconnection through the null, but that might be negligible in volume; what seems more likely is reconnection across the dome-shaped separatrix (shown) or the open fields of the interior reconnection (not shown). In any case the colors are striking and the perspective definitely suggests the 3D nature (differing here from most CSHKP toons). For early views of this geometry see the original Giovanelli or Priest-Schrijver views, neither of which has color.