Impulsive Phase He 10830 Spectra of a Large Solar Limb Flare of 16 August 1989*

We obtained simultaneously He i 10830 Å spectra, H filtergrams and microwave data of a large limb flare (2N/X20) in 1989. In this paper we characterize He i 10830 spectra in relation to the impulsive phase. All the He i 10830 spectra, except those of the surge, show blue shift or blue asymmetry. The velocities inferred from the spectra range from a few to 160 km s–1, implying that the horizontal motion is very likely present in the structure of this flare at different heights. The He i 10830 profiles of a flare are relatively broad and cannot be simulated by the Doppler broadening mechanism with a uniform flare model atmosphere. It is most likely that these characteristics are related to rapid and localized heating in the low and middle chromosphere. Comparing the SXR and microwave data with the optical data leads to the following scenario: the corona was already heated to some extent before the flare onset, and in the first 2 minutes of the impulsive phase, heat conduction was the main source or, at least, a competitive source, for chromospheric heating. However, the impulsive event, associated with the unusually broadened He i 10830 line (f>20 Å) and temporally correlated with a microwave burst, is probably caused by electron-beam heating.