ENERGY STORAGE AND RELEASE IN LARGE SOLAR FLARES

摘要

Large-scale processes providing huge energy storage before a large solar flare and rapid release of this energy during the flare were considered in the strong magnetic field approximation. As an example, we studied active region NOAA 9077, where a flare occurred on 14 July, 2000. It was shown that the energy of the potential magnetic field in the corona exceeds the energy of the nonpotential component by two orders of magnitude. The electric field caused by magnetic reconnection in the corona during the flare was calculated. It was shown that the higher the reconnection rate, the larger the number of electrons is accelerated per unit time to energies corresponding to bremsstrahlung in the hard X-ray range.