Microwave Type III Pair Bursts in Solar Flares

TL;DR

This study analyzes 11 microwave type III pair bursts in solar flares, revealing their characteristics, phase-dependent properties, and plasma conditions near energy-release sites, offering new insights into electron acceleration mechanisms.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed statistical analysis of microwave type III pair bursts, linking their properties to flare phases and plasma conditions, thus constraining acceleration mechanisms.

Findings

Type III pairs occur in impulsive and postflare phases with distinct properties.

Normal branch drift speeds are generally faster than RS branches.

Plasma density near energy-release sites is about 10^{10} - 10^{11} cm^{-3}.

Abstract

Solar microwave type III pair burst is composed of normal and reverse-sloped (RS) burst branches with oppositely fast frequency drifts. It is the most sensitive signature of the primary energy release and electron accelerations in flares. This work reported 11 microwave type III pair events in 9 flares observed by radio spectrometers in China and the Czech Republic at frequency of 0.80 - 7.60 GHz during 1994 - 2014. These type III pairs occurred in flare impulsive and postflare phases with separate frequency in range of 1.08 - 3.42 GHz and frequency gap 10 - 1700 MHz. The frequency drift increases with the separate frequency (f_{x}), the lifetime of each burst is anti-correlated to f_{x}, while the frequency gap is independent to f_{x}. In most events, the normal branches are drifting obviously faster than the RS branches. The type III pairs occurring in flare impulsive phase have lower separate frequency, longer lifetime, wider frequency gap, and slower frequency drift than that occurring in postflare phase. And the latter always has strong circular polarization. Further analysis indicates that near the flare energy-release sites the plasma density is about 10^{10} - 10^{11},cm^{-3} and temperature higher than 10^{7} K . These results provide new constraints to the acceleration mechanism in solar flares.