A long-enduring multi-source burst at 17 GHz and its relation to a type IVm-dm burst with spectral fine features

A proton-event-associated microwave burst occurred on November 10, 1978 and was observed with the 17 GHz interferometer at Nobeyama. The burst had a very broad extent of about 4.5 arc and consisted of at least four separate sources. The time evolutions of the individual sources were almost independent of each other. We suggest that the sources are fallen into two distinct types as follows: (i) The two-ribbon-associated sources are characterized by the source expansion in size and the relatively flat microwave spectrum, both of which can be explained by thermal emission from hot condensed plasma in the magnetic arcades whose legs are seen as the two-ribbon H flare, and (ii) the spot-related sources are characterized by the high polarization degree with a compact unipolar structure, the rapid time variation, and the inverted-U shape microwave spectrum. The intimate relation of the latter sources to the evolution of the associated type IV_m-dm burst with spectral fine features is also discussed.     

VLA observations of interacting flaring loops

We present 4.9 GHz observations of an impulsive radio burst observed at the Very Large Array on 1981 May 16. The flare occurred in a complex active region containing several spots. The radio burst lay at the edge of an active-region microwave source, close to a neutral line. The compact burst showed morphological evidence for the presence of two loops in the rise phase, with the subsequent burst peak lying between these loops. This suggests that interaction between the loops played some role in the initiation of the flare. The flare spectrum is consistent with thermal gyrosynchrotron emission. The main microwave peak was displaced from the nearest H kernels by about 10, but there is strong evidence for post-flare loops coincident with the H kernels during the later stages of the event.     

Observations of preburst heating and magnetic field changes in a coronal loop at 20 cm wavelength

The Very Large Array (VLA) has been used at 20 cm wavelength to study the evolution of a burst loop with 4 resolution on timescales as short as 10 s. The VLA observations show that the coronal loop began to heat up and change its structure about 15 min before the eruption of two impulsive bursts. The first of these bursts occurred near the top of the loop that underwent preburst heating, while the second burst probably occurred along the legs of an adjacent loop. These observations evoke flare models in which coronal loops twist, develop magnetic instabilities and then erupt. We also combine the VLA observations with GOES X-ray data to derive a peak electron temperature of T _e = 2.5 × 10⁷ K and an average electron density of N _e 1 × 10¹⁰ cm^–3 in the coronal loop during the preburst heating phase.     

Coronal densities and magnetic fields from K-coronameter and type IV radio burst data

From K-coronameter data we have obtained an electron density profile above the active region responsible for the Type IV burst observed on 14 September 1966. If the observed frequency cutoff in the burst's spectrum is caused by the Razin effect, then the coronal electron density may be derived from the intensity variation in the burst as it propagates outwards from the Sun. We show that the electron density profiles obtained from K-coronameter data (appropriate to 1.125 <r/R < 2.0) and from the radio data (2.2< r/R < 2.5) form a continuous distribution. We conclude that the cutoff is due to the Razin effect, and that radiation in the burst is due to relativistic electrons having a steep inverse power-law energy distribution. From the electron density profile derived from the radio data, we find that the coronal magnetic field was 0.26 G at r/R = 2.2.     

The simplest solar microbursts flux and circular polarization at 22 GHz

The simplest solar microwave microbursts detected with high sensitivity may be the response to the simpler energetic burst injections. Seventeen events from this category were identified in a series of more than 150 bursts recorded in 21–26 November, 1982. This first systematic study suggest that microbursts e-folding rise times concentrate into two classes of time scales, 0.05 s < t 1 s and 0.5 s t 2 s. Microbursts circular polarization present a dominant steady or slowly varying component that sets in before maximum emission. In some cases a faster component of polarization was found superimposed, which is not always well correlated in time with flux.     

Periods and stability of solar g-modes

We consider the rotation independent (m = 0) frequencies of Hill and Gu (1988) and Henning and Scherrer (1988). Comparison with Cox, Guzik, and Kidman (CGK) frequencies shows that CGK are systematically 5.7 ± 0.7% larger. This effect may be due to the larger central density in this model (162 g cm^–3) compared to the real Sun. A known systematic error of about one percent in the pressure calculated by the Iben (1965) procedure can account for the higher CGK central helium and density. A check of this increase of g-mode frequency with central density is made by calculating g-mode frequencies for a WIMP model with a central density of 210 g cm^–3. This 30% density increase gives a 17% frequency increase, and implies a law with frequency increasing with the 17/30 power of the central density. Thus the 5.7% decrease of frequencies from the model to the real Sun indicates a central density decrease of about 9.7% to about 147 g cm^–3. Comparison with the recent van der Raay g-mode frequencies shows that the CGK model frequencies are about 14% larger, as one would expect for these observed frequencies with a large P ₀ of 41.2 min.Destabilizing mechanisms of the normal -effect at the top of the convection zone and convection blocking at the bottom of the convection zone for low order and low-l g-modes produces pulsation driving that does not seem to be damped by radiation and convection effects at the surface. Since the surface motions are very small, photospheric damping does not stabilize these modes at it does for the 5-min p-modes. For higher-order and degree modes, deep damping by radiation flow across nodes overwhelms the destabilization and any small effect.     

The study of multi-band radio observations on ultraviolet flares of chromospheric active binary V711 Tauri

The chromospherically-active binary, V711 Tau, had been observed by using the American Very Large Array (VLA) at five bands from 1.4 to 15 GHz. During the observation, the source was undergoing an intense flare, its radio luminosity up to 1.8 × 10¹⁸ erg s^–1 Hz^–1. The degree of circular polarization in the phase of the most intense flare was very small. With the decaying of the flare the flux density decreased, spectral index became smaller, spectra steeper and reversal frequency lower; the degree of circular polarization increased and its direction was dependent on frequency. These observational facts support the conclusion that the emission during intense flare is synchrotron (or synchro-cyclotron) mechanism. The magnetic intensity is about 10 G near = 1, the average electron energy, 4 MeV, the electron density with larger than 10 keV, 3 × 10⁴–9 × 10⁴ cm^–3 and the electronic energy spectrum index in power-law distribution 1.3.     

The self absorption of gyro-synchrotron emission in a magnetic dipole field: Microwave impulsive burst and hard X-ray burst

The gyro-synchrotron emission from a model source with a non-uniform magnetic field is computed taking into account the self absorption. This model seems adequate not only to interpret the radio spectrum and its time variation of microwave impulsive bursts but also to solve the discrepancy between the numbers of non-thermal electrons emitting radio burst and those emitting hard X-ray burst.The decrease of flux of radio burst with decreasing frequency at low microwave frequencies is due to the self absorption and/or the thermal gyro-absorption. In this frequency range, the radio source is optically thick even at weak microwave bursts. The weakness of the bursts may be rather due to the small size of the radio source and/or the weakness of the magnetic field than the small number density of the non-thermal electrons.The time variation of the flux of radio burst may be mainly attributed to the variation of source size in a horizontal direction ( direction) instead of the variation of the number density of non-thermal electrons itself, implying that the acceleration region progressively moves in the horizontal direction leaving the non-thermal electrons behind during the increasing phase of the radio burst.     

Circular polarization of solar bursts at 22 GHz

The circular polarization of complex solar bursts was measured at short microwaves (22 GHz, × 1.35 cm) with high sensitivity (0.03 s.f.u. r.m.s.) and high time resolution (5 ms). The polarization shows up as soon as an excess burst emission is measured. Two components are found in the time development of the degree of circular polarization: (1) a steady level, sometime changing smoothly with time; (2) superimposed faster polarization time structures, small compared to the basic steady degree of polarization, and often not clearly related to the burst flux time structures. The observed degrees may range from 10% to more than 85%.In memoriam (1942–1981).     

Source characteristics of main and post-burst-increase phases of solar bursts at 17 GHz

Twenty four solar bursts of peak fluxes above 50 sfu are analyzed which were observed with the 17 GHz interferometer at Nobeyama during the period from 1978 September to 1979 December. Source characteristics and their temporal evolutions are investigated on a statistical basis with high time resolutions up to 0.8 s. Use of a model-fitting technique recently developed by Kosugi (1982) is made to derive both the position of centroid and size (～ FWHM) of burst source with an uncertainty of a few arc sec. The results of this study are the following:

1. Two different phases in the burst, that is to say, the main phase and the post-burst-increase (PBI) phase, are distinguished clearly not only by the morphological difference of flux time profile, but also by the differences of brightness temperature (10⁷-?10⁹ K vs 10⁵–10⁷ K), circular polarization degree (0–50% vs 0–10%), and size (?5–25″ vs 10–70″). There is no definite correlation between the peak fluxes in the two phases.
2. The majority of the selected bursts (21 of 24) show in the main phase source characteristics of the impulsive burst. The total flux varies rapidly (characteristic time scale defined by FWHM ? 100 s), often associated with the rapid shift of position and the rapid change of polarization degree. The source height of the impulsive source is lower than that of the PBI source. On the other hand, the type IV_μ source, seen in three events, shows a gradual variation and the source ascends to a height of ～ 40 000 km above the photosphere.
3. In the PBI phase, the expansion and ascension of the source occur in general (21 of 23 for the former and 12 of 15 for the latter). The velocities of both the movements are of the order of 5 km s^?1.

     

Electron acceleration in solar flares

We present observations of an intense solar flare hard X-ray burst on 1980 June 27, made with a balloon-borne array of liquid nitrogen-cooled germanium detectors which provided unprecedented spectral resolution (1 keV FWHM). The hard X-ray spectra throughout the impulsive phase burst fitted well to a double power-law form, and emission from an isothermal 10⁸–10⁹K plasma can be specifically excluded. The temporal variations of the spectrum indicate that the hard X-ray burst is made up of two superposed components: individual spikes lasting 3–15 s, whch have a hard spectrum and a break energy of 30–65 keV; and a slowly varying component characterized by a soft spectrum with a constant low-energy slope and a break energy which increases from 25 keV to 100 keV through the event. The double power-law shape indicates that acceleration by DC electric fields parallel to the magnetic field, similar to that occurring in the Earth's auroral zone, may be the source of the energetic electrons which produce the hard X-ray emission. The total potential drop required for flares is typically 10² kV compared to 10 kV for auroral substorms.     

A U-type solar radio burst originating in the outer corona

The observation of a U-type solar radio burst with a reversing frequency of approximately 0.7 MHz suggests the presence of a magnetic bottle extending out to about 35 R . A possible model of this loop structure is developed from the data. The occurrence of low-frequency U-bursts seems to be extremely rare although magnetic bottles may develop frequently during solar maximum.     

Rising motion of a behind-the-limb flare at 35 GHz

Interferometer observation of a behind-the-limb flare on 7 September, 1977, at 35 GHz ( = 8.6 mm) shows that the microwave non-thermal radio source of the burst is located in the coronal region at the height higher than 7000 km above the photosphere and rises gradually with the velocity of about 30 km s^-1.     

Understanding Solar Flare Waiting-Time Distributions

The observed distribution of waiting times t between X-ray solar flares of greater than C1 class listed in the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) catalog exhibits a power-law tail (t) for large waiting times (t>10hours). It is shown that the power-law index varies with the solar cycle. For the minimum phase of the cycle the index is =–1.4±0.1, and for the maximum phase of the cycle the index is –3.2±0.2. For all years 1975–2001, the index is –2.2±0.1. We present a simple theory to account for the observed waiting-time distributions in terms of a Poisson process with a time-varying rate (t). A common approximation of slow variation of the rate with respect to a waiting time is examined, and found to be valid for the GOES catalog events. Subject to this approximation the observed waiting-time distribution is determined by f(), the time distribution of the rate . If f() has a power-law form for low rates, the waiting time-distribution is predicted to have a power-law tail (t)^–(3+) (>–3). Distributions f() are constructed from the GOES data. For the entire catalog a power-law index =–0.9±0.1 is found in the time distribution of rates for low rates (<0.1hours ^–1). For the maximum and minimum phases power-law indices =–0.1±0.5 and =–1.7±0.2, respectively, are observed. Hence, the Poisson theory together with the observed time distributions of the rate predict power-law tails in the waiting-time distributions with indices –2.2±0.1 (1975–2001), –2.9±0.5 (maximum phase) and –1.3±0.2 (minimum phase), consistent with the observations. These results suggest that the flaring rate varies in an intrinsically different way at solar maximum by comparison with solar minimum. The implications of these results for a recent model for flare statistics (Craig, 2001) and more generally for our understanding of the flare process are discussed.     

Spatial positions of fast-time structures of a solar burst observed at 48 GHz

The impulsive solar burst of October 28, 1992 showed temporal and spatial fine structures that were observed at 48 GHz with the multi-beam antenna of the Itapetinga Radio Observatory. The relative positions of burst centroids were determined with a spatial accuracy of 2, with a temporal resolution of 1 millisecond. The burst intensity time profile shows fast pulses of about one second duration, superimposed by subsecond time structures. The spatial analysis of the fast pulses suggests that the emission originated from distinct locations, separated by about 5. Our results favour the idea that impulsive solar bursts are a superposition of small elementary events spread both in time and space, probably resulting from discontinuous energy release processes.     

The Splitting Or Disappearance of the Solar 160-Min Mode?

The CrAO-WSO-network experiment was designed for detection of low-degree oscillations of the Sun representing either its normal g -modes or those driven by, e.g., rapid (hypothetical) rotation of the central solar core. The Doppler-shift measurements were made in 1974–1995 at both sites during about 13600 hr, in all. Taking into account the upper limit (0.08 m s^-1) for amplitudes of potential g-modes, attention is paid to the Sun's behaviour at frequencies near the 9th daily harmonic (period P 160.The two main issues follow from analysis of the combined CrAO-WSO data: (a) in 1974–1982 the primary period of solar pulsation was P ₀160.0099 ± 0.0016 ± 0.0016 min, but (b) during the last 13 yr it attained a new value, P ₁ 159.9654 ± 0.0010 min, which happens to be a near-annual sidelobe of P ₀. We find therefore that the phase stability of the 160-min mode is no longer present: it appears to be splitted at least into a pair of oscillations,P ₀ and P ₁, having perhaps different physical origins. But the most striking is the fair coincidence of the strongest peaks in the two data sets: CrAO (1974–1995): P = 159.9662 ±0.0006 min, WSO (1977–1994): P = 159.9663 ± 0.0007 min. The existence of two frequencies,P ^-1 ₀ and P ^-1 ₁, with their separation corresponding to 1-yr period, seems to be difficult to explain in terms of gravity g modes.     

Annihilation radiation from a power-law distributed electron-positron plasma on the ground Landau level: the case of low magnetic fields

Intensity, polarization, and cooling rate of the two-photon annihilation radiation are studied in detail in the case of one-dimensional power-law distributions of electrons and positrons, assuming that they occupy the ground Landau level in a strong magnetic fieldB10¹⁰–10¹² G. Simple analytical expressions for limiting cases are obtained and results of numerical calculations of radiation characteristics are presented. Power-lawe ^± distributions _{± ±} ^–k are shown to generate power-law spectra of the annihilation radiation atEmc ² andEmc ², with indices depending on the direction of radiation. The annihilation spectra at =0 show the largest blue-shifts of their maxima and the hardest high-energy tailsI(Emc ², =0)E ^–(k–1). The blue-shifts reduce, and the hard tials steepen, with increasing . At >(2mc ²/E)^1/2 the slopes of the high-energy tails rapidly transform to that at =2,I(Emc ², =/2)E ^–(2k+3). The direction-integrated spectraS(E) also display the power-law tials at low and high energies,S(Emc ²)E ^–(k+1). The total annihilation rate and energy losses decrease with decreasingk, being higher than for the isotropice ^± power-law distributions at the samek. The radiation is linearly polarized in the plane formed by the magnetic field and wave-vector. The polarization degreeP is maximum atEmc ²:P _max0.6 for =/2. Annihilation features and power-law-like hard tails observed in many gamma-ray burst spectra may be associated with the annihilation radiation of the magnetized power-law distributed plasma near neutron stars. Comparison of the observed and theoretical spectra allows one to estimate the power-law index of thee ^– e ⁺-distribution and the gravitational redshift factor in the radiating region.     

A Solar Stationary Type IV Radio Burst and Its Radiation Mechanism

A stationary Type IV (IVs) radio burst was observed on September 24, 2011. Observations from the Nançay RadioHeliograph (NRH) show that the brightness temperature (\(T_{\mathrm{B}}\)) of this burst is extremely high, over \(10^{11}\) K at 150 MHz and over \(10^{8}\) K in general. The degree of circular polarization (\(q\)) is between \(-60\% \sim -100\%\), which means that it is highly left-handed circularly polarized. The flux–frequency spectrum follows a power-law distribution, and the spectral index is considered to be roughly \(-3 \sim -4\) throughout the IVs. Radio sources of this event are located in the wake of the coronal mass ejection and are spatially dispersed. They line up to present a formation in which lower-frequency sources are higher. Based on these observations, it is suggested that the IVs was generated through electron cyclotron maser emission.     

Thermonuclear X-ray burst of MXB 1658-298 with <Emphasis Type="Italic">NuSTAR</Emphasis>

MXB 1658-298 is a transient Low-Mass X-ray Binary (LMXB), which shows eclipses, dips and bursts in its light curve. This source has undergone three active periods separated by long quiescent phases. The latest phase of enhanced X-ray emission was observed during 2015–2016. We have analysed broadband data from Swift/XRT and NuSTAR observations carried out in 2015. During NuSTAR observation, one thermonuclear X-ray burst took place. The X-ray emission during the burst was brighter by a factor of \(\sim 200\), compared to the pre-burst emission. This work focuses on the spectral analysis of MXB 1658-298 during the persistent and the burst phases using NuSTAR observation of 2015. We have also determined the temperature and radius evolution during the burst using the time-resolved spectroscopy. The burst phase shows mild Photospheric Radius Expansion (PRE).     

Remote flare brightenings and type III reverse slope bursts

We present two large flares which were exceptional in that each produced an extensive chain of H emission patches in remote quiet regions more than 10⁵ km away from the main flare site. They were also unusual in that a large group of the rare type III reverse slope bursts accompanied each flare.The observations suggest that this is no coincidence, but that the two phenomena are directly connected. The onset of about half of the remote H emission patches were found to be nearly simultaneous with RS bursts. One of the flares (August 26, 1979) was also observed in hard X-rays; the RS bursts occurred during hard X-ray spikes. For the other flare (June 16, 1973), soft X-ray filtergrams show coronal loops connecting from the main flare site to the remote H brightenings. There were no other flares in progress during either flare; this, along with the X-ray observations, indicates that the RS burst electrons were generated in these flares and not elsewhere on the Sun. The remote H brightenings were apparently not produced by a blast wave from the main flare; no Moreton waves were observed, and the spatially disordered development of the remote H chains is further evidence against a blast wave. From geometry, time and energy considerations we propose: (1) That the remote H brightenings were initiated by direct heating of the chromosphere by RS burst electrons traveling in closed magnetic loops connecting the flare site to the remote patches; and (2) that after onset, the brightenings were heated by thermal conduction by slower thermal electrons (kT1 keV) which immediately follow the RS burst electrons along the same loops.