Reconnection Driven Coronal Transients

Abstract

The association of coronal transients with two-ribbon solar flares is well established. During the Skylab period, every two-ribbon flare when observed close enough to the limb was accompanied by a coronal transient. Flares do not occur with all transients, however many of these transients are associated with soft X-ray enhancements in the corona similar to but less energetic than the intense X-ray loops that occur with two-ribbon flares [cf. MacCombie and Rust (1979) for a review] . The eruption of a filament seems to be the ingredient common to all these events — more so than flares. For these reasons, we consider this class of phenomena, regardless of whether a flare occurs or not, to be exhibiting a common physical process. To produce chromospheric emission requires a substantial amount of energy. Hence, one should expect chromospheric flares to be associated with only the most energetic phenomena. Nevertheless, the most comprehensive observations covering a wide range of wavelengths (Ha, EUV, X-ray, radio, white light) are available for the large two-ribbon flares, and the study of these events sheds the most light on the mechanism which produces coronal transients.