[en] The 3-D Plasma and Energetic Particles experiment on the WIND spacecraft was designed to provide high sensitivity measurements of both suprathermal ions and electrons down to solar wind energies. A statistical survey of 26 solar proton events has been investigated. For all these proton events, a temporally related electron event is observed. The presented results focus on the properties of protons released near the Sun which show a velocity dispersion when detected at 1 AU. The particle flux onset times observed at 1 AU in the energy range between 30 keV and 6 MeV suggest that there are two classes of proton events: (1) For one class (70% of the events), the first arriving protons are traveling almost scatterfree as indicated by the derived path lengths between 1.1 and 1.3 AU, (2) whereas the events of the second class show significantly larger path lengths of around 2 AU. Relative to the electron release time at the Sun, the almost scatterfree traveling protons of the first class of events are release delayed by 0.5 to 2 hours. For the events of the second class, protons and electrons seemed to be released simultaneously within the accuracy of 20 minutes

[en] We report on Transition Region And Coronal Explorer 171 A observations of the GOES X20 class flare on 2001 April 2 that shows EUV flare ribbons with intense diffraction patterns. Between the 11th to 14th order, the diffraction patterns of the compact flare ribbon are dispersed into two sources. The two sources are identified as emission from the Fe IX line at 171.1 A and the combined emission from Fe X lines at 174.5, 175.3, and 177.2 A. The prominent emission of the Fe IX line indicates that the EUV-emitting ribbon has a strong temperature component near the lower end of the 171 A temperature response (∼0.6-1.5 MK). Fitting the observation with an isothermal model, the derived temperature is around 0.65 MK. However, the low sensitivity of the 171 A filter to high-temperature plasma does not provide estimates of the emission measure for temperatures above ∼1.5 MK. Using the derived temperature of 0.65 MK, the observed 171 A flux gives a density of the EUV ribbon of 3 x 10¹¹ cm^-3. This density is much lower than the density of the hard X-ray producing region (∼10¹³ to 10¹⁴ cm^-3) suggesting that the EUV sources, though closely related spatially, lie at higher altitudes.

[en] We study the detectability and characterization of electron beams as they leave their acceleration site in the low corona toward interplanetary space through their nonthermal X-ray bremsstrahlung emission. We demonstrate that the largest interplanetary electron beams (∼>10³⁵ electrons above 10 keV) can be detected in X-rays with current and future instrumentation, such as RHESSI or the X-Ray Telescope (XRT) onboard Hinode. We make a list of optimal observing conditions and beam characteristics. Amongst others, good imaging (as opposed to mere localization or detection in spatially integrated data) is required for proper characterization, putting the requirement on the number of escaping electrons (above 10 keV) to ∼>3 x 10³⁶ for RHESSI, ∼>3 x 10³⁵ for Hinode/XRT, and ∼>10³³ electrons for the FOXSI sounding rocket scheduled to fly in 2011. Moreover, we have found that simple modeling hints at the possibility that coronal soft X-ray jets could be the result of local heating by propagating electron beams.

[en] We investigate the propagation of ∼0.3-300 keV electrons in five solar impulsive electron events, observed by the WIND three-dimensional Plasma and Energetic Particle instrument, that have rapid-rise and rapid-decay temporal profiles. In two events, the temporal profiles above 25 keV show a second peak of inward-traveling electrons tens of minutes after the first peak, followed by a third peak due to outward-traveling electrons minutes later-likely due to reflection/scattering first at ∼0.7-1.7 AU past the Earth, and then in the inner heliosphere inside 1 AU. In the five events, below a transition energy E₀ (∼10-40 keV), the pitch-angle distributions are highly anisotropic with a pitch-angle width at half-maximum (PAHM) of <15⁰ (unresolved) through the time of the peak; the ratio Λ of the peak flux of scattered (22.⁰5-90⁰ relative to the outward direction) to field-aligned scatter-free (0⁰-22.⁰5) electrons is ∼<0.1. Above E₀, the PAHM at the flux peak increases with energy up to 85⁰ at 300 keV, and Λ also increases with energy up to ∼0.8 at 300 keV. Thus, low-energy electrons propagated essentially scatter-free through the interplanetary medium, while high-energy electrons experienced pitch-angle scattering, with scattering strength increasing with energy. The transition energy E₀ between the two populations is always such that the electron gyroradius (ρ_e) is approximately equal to the local thermal proton gyroradius (ρ_Tp), suggesting that the higher energy electrons were scattered by resonance with turbulent fluctuations at scale ∼>ρ_Tp in the solar wind.

[en] We report on the most prominent example of an above-the-loop hard X-ray source in the extensive solar flare database of RHESSI. The limb flare of 2003 October 22 around 20 UT resembles the famous Masuda flare, except that only one of the footpoint sources is visible with the other one occulted. However, even for this very prominent event, the above-the-loop source is only visible during one of the four hard X-ray peaks, highlighting the rare occurrence of above-the-loop sources that are equally bright as footpoint sources. The relative timing between the above-the-loop and footpoint sources shows that the coronal source peaks about 10 s before the footpoint source and decays during the time the footpoint source is most prominent. Furthermore, the derived number of non-thermal electrons within the above-the-loop source is large enough to provide the needed number of precipitating electrons to account for the footpoint emission over the duration of the hard X-ray peak. Hence, these observations support the simple scenario where bulk energization is accelerating all electrons within the above-the-loop source and precipitating electrons are emptying out of the above-the-loop source to produce the footpoint emissions.

[en] We present a high-energy (>150 keV) imaging survey of all solar γ-ray flares observed by the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) to study bremsstrahlung emission from relativistic electrons. Using RHESSI rear segment data, images in the energy range from 150 to 450 keV integrated over the total duration of the impulsive phase of the flare are derived. Out of the 29 γ-ray peaks in 26 RHESSI flares, we successfully obtained images for 21 γ-ray peaks in 20 flares. The remaining eight peaks have >150 keV fluences of less than a few hundred photons per cm² and counting statistics are too poor for detailed imaging. The flux ratio of the footpoint sources is found to be similar at 50 keV and above 150 keV, indicating that relativistic electrons are present in both footpoints of the flare loop. No correlation between the footpoint separation and the fluence ratio of the 2.2 MeV line and the >300 keV photons is found. This indicates that the relative efficiency of proton to electron acceleration does not depend on loop length, as could have been expected from stochastic acceleration models. As previously reported, the three flares with the best counting statistics show not only footpoint emission, but also a coronal γ-ray bremsstrahlung source. For events with lower counting statistics, no coronal source could be identified. However, instrumental limitation could easily hide a coronal source for events with lower statistics, suggesting that coronal γ-ray bremsstrahlung sources are nevertheless a general feature of γ-ray flares.

[en] Using hard X-ray observations from the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI), we investigate the reliability of spectral hardening during solar flares as an indicator of related solar energetic particle (SEP) events at Earth. All RHESSI data are analyzed, from 2002 February through the end of Solar Cycle 23, thereby expanding upon recent work on a smaller sample of flares. Previous investigations have found very high success when associating soft-hard-harder (SHH) spectral behavior with energetic proton events, and confirmation of this link would suggest a correlation between electron acceleration in solar flares and SEPs seen in interplanetary space. In agreement with these past findings, we find that of 37 magnetically well-connected flares (W30-W90), 12 of 18 flares with SHH behavior produced SEP events and none of 19 flares without SHH behavior produced SEPs. This demonstrates a statistically significant dependence of SHH and SEP observations, a link that is unexplained in the standard scenario of SEP acceleration at the shock front of coronal mass ejections and encourages further investigation of the mechanisms which could be responsible.

[en] We report on high-resolution optical and hard X-ray observations of solar flare ribbons seen during the GOES X6.5 class white-light flare of 2006 December 6. The data consist of imaging observations at 430 nm (the Fraunhofer G band) taken by the Hinode Solar Optical Telescope with the hard X-rays observed by the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager. The two sets of data show closely similar ribbon structures, strongly suggesting that the flare emissions in white light and in hard X-rays have physically linked emission mechanisms. While the source structure along the ribbons is resolved at both wavelengths (length ∼ 30''), only the G-band observations resolve the width of the ribbon, with values between ∼0.''5 and ∼1.''8. The unresolved hard X-ray observations reveal an even narrower ribbon in hard X-rays (the main footpoint has a width perpendicular to the ribbon of <1.''1 compared to the G-band width of ∼1.''8) suggesting that the hard X-ray emission comes from the sharp leading edge of the G-band ribbon. Applying the thick-target beam model, the derived energy deposition rate is >5 x 10¹² erg s^-1 cm^-2 provided by an electron flux of 1 x 10²⁰ electrons s^-1 cm^-2 above 18 keV. This requires that the beam density of electrons above 18 keV be at least 1 x 10¹⁰ cm^-3. Even if field lines converge toward the chromospheric footpoints, the required beam in the corona has too high a density to be described as a dilute tail population on top of a Maxwellian core. We discuss this issue and others associated with this extreme event, which poses serious questions to the standard thick target beam interpretation of solar flares.

[en] The electric field in the reconnecting current sheet of the 2003 October 29 X10 flare is estimated to be a few kV m^-1 in this study, based on the rate of change in the photospheric magnetic flux in the newly brightened areas of Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) UV ribbons. For comparison, the motion speed of Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) hard X-ray (HXR) footpoints and the photospheric magnetic field strength are also used for the electric field calculation. This X10 flare event is selected due to its distinct two-phase HXR kernel motion, two arcade systems with different magnetic shear, and the high cadence and complete coverage of the TRACE 1600 A Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) magnetogram and RHESSI HXR observations. We pay particular attention to the electric field characteristics in different flare phases, as well as the temporal correlation with the HXR emission and its power-law spectral index and the photospheric magnetic field strength. We found that in the early impulsive phase, the reconnection electric field peaks just before the HXR emission peaks and the energy spectrum hardens. The result is consistent with the scenario that more particles are accelerated to higher energies by larger reconnection electric fields and then precipitate into the lower chromosphere to produce stronger HXR emissions. Such a particle acceleration mechanism plays its most significant role in the impulsive phase of this flare. In addition, our results provide evidence that the highly sheared magnetic field lines are mapped to the magnetic reconnection diffusion region to produce a large reconnection electric field.

[en] We present a detailed examination on the coronal nonthermal emissions during the preflare phase of the X4.8 flare that occurred on 2002 July 23. The microwave (17 GHz and 34 GHz) data obtained with Nobeyama Radioheliograph, at Nobeyama Solar Radio Observatory and the hard X-ray (HXR) data taken with RHESSI obviously showed nonthermal sources that are located above the flare loops during the preflare phase. We performed imaging spectroscopic analyses on the nonthermal emission sources both in microwaves and in HXRs, and confirmed that electrons are accelerated from several tens of keV to more than 1 MeV even in this phase. If we assume the thin-target model for the HXR emission source, the derived electron spectral indices (∼4.7) is the same value as that from microwaves (∼4.7) within the observational uncertainties, which implies that the distribution of the accelerated electrons follows a single power law. The number density of the microwave-emitting electrons is, however, larger than that of the HXR-emitting electrons, unless we assume low-ambient plasma density of about 1.0 x 10⁹ cm^-3 for the HXR-emitting region. If we adopt the thick-target model for the HXR emission source, on the other hand, the electron spectral index (∼6.7) is much different, while the gap of the number density of the accelerated electrons is somewhat reduced.