On the Source Position and Duration of a Solar Type III Radio Burst Observed by LOFAR

TL;DR

This study investigates the source positions and durations of a solar type III radio burst using LOFAR data, concluding that electron-velocity dispersion mainly influences long-duration bursts, while scattering affects shorter ones.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of source position splitting and the dominant factors affecting burst duration using simultaneous spatial and spectral data from LOFAR.

Findings

Source positions of burst edges split spatially

Radial speeds of source edges vary from 0.16c to 0.42c

Electron-velocity dispersion is the main factor for long-duration bursts

Abstract

Solar type III radio bursts are excited by electron beams propagating outward from the Sun. The flux of type III radio burst has a time profile of rising and decay phase at a given frequency, which has been actively studied since 1970s. Several factors that may influence the duration of a type III radio burst has been proposed. However, the major cause of the duration is still an open question. In this work, to study the dominant cause of the duration, we investigate the source positions of the front edge, the peak, and the tail edge in the dynamic spectrum of a single and clear type III radio burst. The duration of this type III burst at a given frequency is about 3 second for decameter wave. The beam-formed observations by the LOw-Frequency ARray (LOFAR) are used, which can provide the radio source positions and the dynamic spectra at the same time. We find that, for this burst, the source positions of the front edge, the peak, and the tail edge split with each other spatially. The radial speed of the front edge, the peak, and the tail edge is 0.42 c, 0.25 c, and 0.16 c, respectively. We estimate the influences of the corona density fluctuation and the electron-velocity dispersion on the duration, and the scattering effect by comparison with a few short-duration bursts from the same region. The analysis yields that, in the frequency range of 30 - 41 MHz, the electron-velocity dispersion is the dominant factor that determines the time duration of type III radio bursts with long duration, while scattering may play important role in the duration of short bursts.