Concerning spikes in emission and absorption in the microwave range

Abstract

In some events, weak fast solar bursts (near the level of the quiet Sun) were observed in the background of numerous spikes in emission and absorption. In such a case, the background contains the noise signals of the receiver. In events on 2005 September 16 and 2002 April 14, the solar origin of fast bursts was confirmed by simultaneous recording of the bursts at several remote observatories. The noisy background pixels in emission and absorption can be excluded by subtracting a higher level of continuum when constructing the spectra. The wavelet spectrum, noisy profiles in different polarization channels and a spectrum with continuum level greater than zero demonstrates the noisy character of pixels with the lowest levels of emission and absorption. Thus, in each case, in order to judge the solar origin of all spikes, it is necessary to determine the level of continuum against the background of which the solar bursts are observed. Several models of microwave spikes are discussed. The electron cyclotron maser emission mechanism runs into serious problems with the interpretation of microwave millisecond spikes: the main obstacles are too high values of the magnetic field strength in the source (ωPe ≤ ωBe). The probable mechanism is the interaction of plasma Langmuir waves with ion-sound waves (l + s → t) in a source related to shock fronts in the reconnection region.