Solar Physics Division Meeting 2000, June 19-22
Session 2. Corona, Solar Wind, Flares, CMEs, Solar-stellar, Instrumentation, Other
Display, Chair: J. Krall, Monday-Thursday, June 19, 2000, 8:00am-6:00pm, Forum Ballroom

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[2.70] Evidence for continued reconnection in solar flares

D. Alexander (Lockheed Martin Solar & Astrophysics Lab.), A. Czaykowska (MPI for extraterrestrial Physics)

Fast upflows observed in the late gradual phase of an M6.8 two-ribbon flare by SOHO/CDS have provided evidence for the presence of chromospheric evaporation more than an hour after the main impulsive phase of the flare. The chromospheric heating necessary to generate these upflows requires the continued injection and deposition of energy, which we presume to be provided by magnetic reconnection in the flaring corona. We investigate the nature of the transport of this energy from the reconnection site to the chromosphere by comparing the observed velocities with those expected from different chromospheric heating models.

A non-thermal electron-beam model capable of generating the observed velocities would also generate significant hard X-ray emission which is not observed at this stage of the flare. We, therefore, conclude that the most likely energy transport mechanism is thermal conduction.

This work is supported by the Yohkoh/SXT project at LMSAL (contract NAS8-40801).


The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: alexander@lmsal.com

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