Joint session WG4/5 Points for discussion: - Soft-hard-soft spectral behaviour – again - Non-thermal pre-impulsive coronal sources - Very dense coronal loops (~ cm -3 ) and other dense structures - Coronal sources that decrease in altitude (sometimes as footpoints approach), then increase - tiny inferred size of flare footpoints high beam flux and implications
30-50 keV intensity keV / keV intensity ratio keV / keV intensity ratio Correlation between impulsive phase intensity and spectral hardness - ubiquitous Spectral soft – hard - soft
GOES 1-8 A DERIVATIVE Non-thermal preflare coronal sources
RHESSI Preflare Maps 3-12 keV (color): keV (contours) 01:07:00-01:08:30 01:08:00-01:10:30 01:11:00-01:12:30 Coronal source
RHESSI SPECTRA 5-50 keV Thermal+broken powerlaw Preflare period: 01:02:00-01:11:00 Broken powerlaw extends down to 5 keV Thermal component never dominates EM and T are poorly determined Chisquare ~ 1 if EM=0 White = photons, Green = thermal model, Red = broken powerlaw, Purple = background (NB similar source in July 23 rd 2002 event)
Dense coronal sources Substantial high energy emission in corona: thermal and radio observations allow estimate of density – cm keV30-50 keV keV 20 July 2002, pixon image reconstruction
Descending loop top sources Time evolution: blue white Footpoints: keV Loop top: keV
H footpoint separation HXR source ‘height’ Descending loop top sources – with decreasing footpoint separation
Flare footpoints – white light observations WL coincides with HXR source locations – sizes at resolution of TRACE (few px = few 1000 km area ~ cm 2 )
M2.2 flare Predicted ‘evaporation’ velocity as function of beam flux Using A= cm 2 Using A= cm 2