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The recent discovery of impulsive solar burst emission in the 30 THz band is raising new interpretation challenges. One event associated with a GOES M2 class flare has been observed simultaneously in microwaves, H-alpha, EUV, and soft X-ray bands. Although these new observations confirm some features found in the two prior known events, they exhibit time profile structure discrepancies between 30 THz, microwaves, and hard X-rays (as inferred from the Neupert effect). These results suggest a more complex relationship between 30 THz emission and radiation produced at other wavelength ranges. The multiple frequency emissions in the impulsive phase are likely to be produced at a common flaring site lower in the chromosphere. The 30 THz burst emission may be either part of a nonthermal radiation mechanism or due to the rapid thermal response to a beam of high-energy particles bombarding the dense solar atmosphere., Comment: accepted to Astronomy and Astrophysics

Solar observations in the infrared domain can bring important clues on the response of the low solar atmosphere to primary energy released during flares. At present the infrared continuum has been detected at 30 THz (10 $\mu$m) in only a few flares. In this work we present a detailed multi-frequency analysis of SOL2012-03-13, including observations at radio millimeter and sub-millimeter wavelengths, in hard X-rays (HXR), gamma-rays (GR), H-alpha, and white-light. HXR/GR spectral analysis shows that the event is a GR line flare and allows estimating the numbers of and energy contents in electrons, protons and alpha particles produced during the flare. The energy spectrum of the electrons producing the HXR/GR continuum is consistent with a broken power-law with an energy break at ~800 keV. It is shown that the high-energy part (above ~800 keV) of this distribution is responsible for the high-frequency radio emission (> 20 GHz) detected during the flare. By comparing the 30 THz emission expected from semi-empirical and time-independent models of the quiet and flare atmospheres, we find that most (~80%) of the observed 30 THz radiation can be attributed to thermal free-free emission of an optically-thin source. Using the F2 flare atmospheric model this thin source is found to be at temperatures T~8000 K and is located well above the minimum temperature region. We argue that the chromospheric heating, which results in 80% of the 30 THz excess radiation, can be due to energy deposition by non-thermal flare accelerated electrons, protons and alpha particles. The remaining 20% of the 30 THz excess emission is found to be radiated from an optically-thick atmospheric layer at T~5000 K, below the temperature minimum region, where direct heating by non-thermal particles is insufficient to account for the observed infrared radiation., Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Solar Physics

Solar energetic particle (SEP) events are related to flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). This work is a new investigation of statistical relationships between SEP peak intensities - deka-MeV protons and near-relativistic electrons - and characteristic quantities of the associated solar activity. We consider the speed of the CME and quantities describing the flare-related energy release: peak flux and fluence of soft X-ray (SXR) emission, fluence of microwave emission. The sample comprises 38 SEP events associated with strong SXR bursts (classes M and X) in the western solar hemisphere between 1997 and 2006, and where the flare-related particle acceleration is accompanied by radio bursts indicating electron escape to the interplanetary space. The main distinction of the present statistical analysis from earlier work is that besides the classical Pearson correlation coefficient the partial correlation coefficients are calculated in order to disentangle the effects of correlations between the solar parameters themselves. The classical correlation analysis shows the usual picture of correlations with broad scatter between SEP peak intensities and the different parameters of solar activity, and strong correlations between the solar activity parameters themselves. The partial correlation analysis shows that the only parameters that affect significantly the SEP intensity are the CME speed and the SXR fluence. The SXR peak flux and the microwave fluence have no additional contribution. We conclude that these findings bring statistical evidence that both flare acceleration and CME shock acceleration contribute to the deka-MeV proton and near-relativistic electron populations in large SEP events., Comment: The final publication is available at Springer via http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11207-014-0628-1

Solar flares observed in the 200-400 GHz radio domain may exhibit a slowly varying and time-extended component which follows a short (few minutes) impulsive phase and which lasts for a few tens of minutes to more than one hour. The few examples discussed in the literature indicate that such long-lasting submillimeter emission is most likely thermal bremsstrahlung. We present a detailed analysis of the time-extended phase of the 2003 October 27 (M6.7) flare, combining 1-345 GHz total-flux radio measurements with X-ray, EUV, and H{\alpha} observations. We find that the time-extended radio emission is, as expected, radiated by thermal bremsstrahlung. Up to 230 GHz, it is entirely produced in the corona by hot and cool materials at 7-16 MK and 1-3 MK, respectively. At 345 GHz, there is an additional contribution from chromospheric material at a few 10^4 K. These results, which may also apply to other millimeter-submillimeter radio events, are not consistent with the expectations from standard semi-empirical models of the chromosphere and transition region during flares, which predict observable radio emission from the chromosphere at all frequencies where the corona is transparent., Comment: 27 pages, 7 figures

The GOES X1.5 class flare that occurred on August 30,2002 at 1327:30 UT is one of the few events detected so far at submillimeter wavelengths. We present a detailed analysis of this flare combining radio observations from 1.5 to 212 GHz (an upper limit of the flux is also provided at 405 GHz) and X-ray. Although the observations of radio emission up to 212 GHz indicates that relativistic electrons with energies of a few MeV were accelerated, no significant hard X-ray emission was detected by RHESSI above ~ 250 keV. Images at 12--20 and 50--100 keV reveal a very compact, but resolved, source of about ~ 10" x 10". EUV TRACE images show a multi-kernel structure suggesting a complex (multipolar) magnetic topology. During the peak time the radio spectrum shows an extended flatness from ~ 7 to 35 GHz. Modeling the optically thin part of the radio spectrum as gyrosynchrotron emission we obtained the electron spectrum (spectral index delta, instantaneous number of emitting electrons). It is shown that in order to keep the expected X-ray emission from the same emitting electrons below the RHESSI background at 250 keV, a magnetic field above 500 G is necessary. On the other hand, the electron spectrum deduced from radio observations >= 50 GHz is harder than that deduced from ~ 70 - 250 keV X-ray data, meaning that there must exist a breaking energy around a few hundred keV. During the decay of the impulsive phase, a hardening of the X-ray spectrum is observed which is interpreted as a hardening of the electron distribution spectrum produced by the diffusion due to Coulomb collisions of the trapped electrons in a medium with an electron density of n_e ~ 3E10 - 5E10 cm-3., Comment: Accpeted in Astronomy & Astrophysics. 9 Pages, 6 Figures ADDED REFERENCES

We present the analysis of five microflares, three observed simultaneously by RHESSI in hard X-rays and Nobeyama RadioHeliograph (NoRH) in microwaves (17 GHz) and two observed by RHESSI and Nancay RadioHeliograph (NRH) at metric wavelengths (150-450 MHz). Since we have no radio imaging telescopes simultaneously operating at microwave and meter wavelengths in the same time zone, we are obliged to use a different set of microevents for comparison with metric wavelength counterparts in contrast to that used for comparison with metric wavelength counterparts in contrast to that used for comparison with microwave events. This is because we are interested in using the locations and other imaging characteristics of the events from both RHESSI and Nancay instead of just temporal correlation. Here we describe the properties of five events -- three in microwaves and two at metric wavelengths.

Imaging observations at decimetric and metric wavelengths of the solar corona are used to investigate a short-lasting noise storm and the associated changes of the underlying active-region plasma. It is shown that a new source appears in the active region in close temporal and spatial coincidence with the onset of the noise storm in the middle corona. The onset of the noise storm is delayed at longer wavelengths. At a given wavelength, the noise-storm source undergoes a systematic slow movement with a significant component perpendicular to the magnetic-field lines above the active region. The observations are tentatively attributed to the emission of nonthermal electrons in a system of expanding coronal loops, the expansion being initiated by the appearance of the new 21-cm source in the low atmosphere. The derived velocity of expansion is about 80 to 150 km/s. The electrons emitting the noise storm cannot be provided by the high-energy tail of the Maxwellian in the new active region source, but originate either from a nonthermal population in this source or from acceleration at higher altitudes, in the structures which give rise to the noise storm.