The initial development of solar flares

✍ Scribed by J. F. Vesecky; A. J. Meadows

• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1969
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 313 KB
• Volume: 6
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0038-0938
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00146798

✦ Synopsis

The extent to which the early phases of solar-flare development can be accounted for by a simple high-temperature chromospheric explosion model is investigated without involving a particular energy source. A model is developed in which it is shown that a point explosion in the lower chromosphere can be treated as a virtually instantaneous release of energy throughout a volume of radius R ~ 100 kin, which subsequently expands as a classical hydrodynamic blast wave in which R ~ t ~ (c~< 2). This model is in substantial agreement with areal growth-rate observations of disk flares. An explanation for the fact that limb-flare observations can imply c~> ~ is suggested by considering the effects of the large atmospheric density gradient in the lower chromosphere on an upward travelling shock wave.