Properties of elementary flare bursts

From a study of eight hard X-ray flares, all with durations of less than five minutes, it is found that these flares can be completely decomposed into short-lived bursts, called Elementary Flare Bursts (EFB). For each one flare the individual EFB's have approximatively the same Full Width at Half Maximum (FWHM); average values range between 4 s (± 1 s) and 24 s (± 5 s) for the different flares. Yet there are significant differences between the FWHM's for the individual EFB's of a flare. The EFB's are slightly asymmetric; rise time is approx. 0.9 of the decay time. Their half-widths decrease with increasing photon energy, proportional to E ^-0.69±0.05.