RHESSI Observations of Long-Duration Flares With Long-Lasting X-ray Loop-Top Sources

TL;DR

This study uses RHESSI observations to analyze long-duration solar flares, revealing prolonged X-ray emissions from large, hot loop-top sources and quantifying the energy needed to sustain this emission over hours.

Contribution

It provides detailed imaging spectroscopy of long-duration flares, demonstrating sustained X-ray emission and estimating the energy required to maintain it, which was not previously well characterized.

Findings

HXR thermal emission can last for many hours after flare maximum

Emission originates from large, hot loop-top sources

Energy required to sustain emission can reach 10^31 erg

Abstract

Context: The Yohkoh/HXT observations of Long Duration Events (LDEs) showed that the HXR emission (14-23 keV) is present for tens of minutes after flare maximum. Hence, some heating process is expected to exist during that time. The better energy resolution of RHESSI compared to HXT allow us to analyse LDEs in more comprehensive way. Aims: We selected three LDEs observed by RHESSI to answer the questions how long HXR emission can be present, where it is emitted, what is its nature and how much energy should be released to sustain the emission. Methods: We used RHESSI data to reconstruct images of the selected flares with an energy resolution as good as 1 keV. Next we estimated physical parameters of HXR sources through imaging spectroscopy. The physical parameters obtained were then used to calculate the energy balance of the observed sources. Results: We found that HXR thermal emission can be present for many hours after LDE flare maximum. The emission comes from large and hot loop-top sources. The total energy that must be released to sustain the emission of the sources is as high as 10^31 erg.