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L. Fletcher (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Glasgow), M. J. Aschwanden (LMSAL)
With the upcoming launch of the HESSI satellite, we expect that problems of non-thermal electron transport and radiation signatures will once more be the subject of some attention, since this is an integral part of the calculation of the spectral and spatial behavior of the radiative signatures which will be observed by HESSI. Problems of particle transport in coronal magnetic traps are often treated by making simple geometrical and timescale arguments for the fractions of accelerated particles which are trapped and precipitate from coronal loops. Such arguments are used to calculate the populations of, for example, directly precipitating and trap-precipitating particles (which can in principle be identified from hard X-ray time-series), or coronal versus footpoint emission ratios (which can be studied from spatially resolved HXR data). Using numerical simulation and analytic arguments we have studied the dynamics of particles within coronal traps, paying particular attention to the behavior in the vicinity of the loss-cone. We find that over a broad range of normally-assumed coronal parameters, such as mirror-ratio, loop length and loop density, (a) electrons cannot pass easily from the trap region to the loss-cone, so that (b) there is no collisionless trap-precipitating component and (c) a large fraction of accelerated particles will lose their entire energy budget within the coronal loop. We discuss what this means for our current understanding of the solar flare environment and our interpretation of radiative signatures.
This work was supported by the Yohkoh/SXT project at LMSAL (NASA grant NAS8-40801) and by the U.K. Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: lyndsay@astro.gla.ac.uk