A STATISTICAL STUDY OF THE SPECTRAL HARDENING OF CONTINUUM EMISSION IN SOLAR FLARES

Abstract

The observed hard X-ray and {gamma}-ray continuum in solar flares is interpreted as Bremsstrahlung emission of accelerated non-thermal electrons. It has been noted for a long time that in many flares the energy spectra show hardening at energies around or above 300 keV. In this paper, we first conduct a survey of spectral hardening events that were previously studied in the literature. We then perform a systematic examination of 185 flares from the Solar Maximum Mission. We identify 23 electron-dominated events whose energy spectra show clear double power laws. A statistical study of these events shows that the spectral index below the break ({gamma}{sub 1}) anti-correlates with the break energy ({epsilon}{sub b}). Furthermore, {gamma}{sub 1} also anti-correlates with Fr, the fraction of photons above the break compared to the total photons. A hardening spectrum, as well as the correlations between ({gamma}{sub 1}, {epsilon}{sub b}) and ({gamma}{sub 1}, Fr), provide stringent constraints on the underlying electron acceleration mechanism. Our results support a recent proposal that electrons are being accelerated diffusively at a flare termination shock with a width of the order of an ion inertial length scale.