Solar flares, microflares, nanoflares, and coronal heating

✍ Scribed by H. S. Hudson

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1991
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 717 KB
• Volume: 133
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0038-0938
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00149894

✦ Synopsis

Solar flare occurrence follows a power-law distribution against total flare energy. W: dN dW with an index e ~ 1.8 as determined by several studies. This implies (a) that microflares must have a different, steeper distribution if they are energetically significant, and (b) there must be a high-energy cutoff of the observed distribution. We identif~ the distinct 'soft' distribution needed for coronal heating, if such a distribution exists, with Parker's nanoflares. * This paper considers a 'microflare' to be a member of the normal X-ray burst population, with comparable physical parameters except for a smaller total energy.