Fine structure in solar microwave bursts

We have designed and constructed a new multi-channel radio spectrograph for the study of short-lived structures in solar microwave bursts. It measured the integrated flux over the whole solar disc in two circular polarizations at 36 frequencies between 4 and 8 GHz, with a time constant of 0.5 ms. We have analyzed all 119 recorded bursts observed in 1981 and 1983. We focused our attention on events with a lifetime of less than 1 s. Fine structure occurs in about 30% of the observed bursts, and can be as rich in detail as in bursts observed at lower frequencies. We found at least four different classes of events. In one event neither bandwidth nor time resolution of the receiver appear to be sufficient to resolve the fine structure. The bulk of the drifts is found to be towards higher frequencies. Periodic flux variations were found in two cases.