On the role of energetic particles in solar flares

Abstract

The importance of energetic particles in the generation of solar flares and related phenomena has been underestimated if not completely neglected. A reexamination of their role in the light of recent observations carried out during the last solar maximum by a number of experiments on SMM and Hinotori satellites points out the continuous and violent evolution of the solar atmosphere. Most observed features can be better explained by the old idea that particles are trapped in magnetic loops above active regions where they are first heated and then accelerated by absorbing part of the wave energy flowing upwards continuously from the convection zone. Their catastrophic release into the chromosphere as a consequence of an instability in the region such as chromospheric heating or due to the emergence of new magnetic flux is considered as being the flare proper. Since the trapping of the particles involves the generation of resonant waves, a reassessment of the isotopic overabundance problem as well as a search for these waves in interplanetary space are proposed.