Diagnostics of solar flare hard X-ray sources

✍ Scribed by Peter Hoyng; Joshua W. Knight; Daniel S. Spicer

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1978
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 552 KB
• Volume: 58
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0038-0938
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00152560

✦ Synopsis

The dynamics of hard X-ray producing electron beams in solar flares can be strongly affected by the occurrence of a reverse current. The parameter diagram for a beam can be divided into three regimes, one of which is the usual thick target case, the two others being due to two different possible consequences of the reverse current. The use of this parameter diagram as a possible diagnostic tool for solar flare hard X-ray sources is discussed, together with the necessary observations and their interpretation.

The forthcoming Solar Maximum Mission, complemented with concurrent ground-based efforts provide the next possibility to obtain these observations, given a good coordination of observing programs. We stress the importance of microwave (GHz) ratio observations with good temporal (-<few sec) and spatial resolution (~<1") in one dimension, and of reliable spectroscopic methods to determine the density in solar flare hard X-ray sources.