Low Altitude Solar Magnetic Reconnection, Type III Solar Radio Bursts, and X-ray Emissions

Journal
Date Issued
2018
Author(s)
Cairns, I. H.
•
Lobzin, V. V.
•
Donea, A.
•
Tingay, S. J.
•
McCauley, P. I.
•
Oberoi, D.
•
Duffin, R. T.
•
Reiner, M. J.
•
Hurley-Walker, N.
•
Kudryavtseva, N. A.
•
Melrose, D. B.
•
Harding, J. C.
•
•
Bowman, J. D.
•
Cappallo, R. J.
•
Corey, B. E.
•
Deshpande, A.
•
Emrich, D.
•
Goeke, R.
•
Hazelton, B. J.
•
Johnston-Hollitt, M.
•
Kaplan, D. L.
•
Kasper, J. C.
•
Kratzenberg, E.
•
Lonsdale, C. J.
•
Lynch, M. J.
•
McWhirter, S. R.
•
Mitchell, D. A.
•
Morales, M. F.
•
Morgan, E.
•
Ord, S. M.
•
Prabu, T.
•
Roshi, A.
•
Shankar, N. Udaya
•
Srivani, K. S.
•
Subrahmanyan, R.
•
Wayth, R. B.
•
Waterson, M.
•
Webster, R. L.
•
Whitney, A. R.
•
Williams, A.
•
Williams, C. L.
DOI
Abstract
Type III solar radio bursts are the Sun's most intense and frequent nonthermal radio emissions. They involve two critical problems in astrophysics, plasma physics, and space physics: how collective processes produce nonthermal radiation and how magnetic reconnection occurs and changes magnetic energy into kinetic energy. Here magnetic reconnection events are identified definitively in Solar Dynamics Observatory UV-EUV data, with strong upward and downward pairs of jets, current sheets, and cusp-like geometries on top of time-varying magnetic loops, and strong outflows along pairs of open magnetic field lines. Type III bursts imaged by the Murchison Widefield Array and detected by the Learmonth radiospectrograph and STEREO B spacecraft are demonstrated to be in very good temporal and spatial coincidence with specific reconnection events and with bursts of X-rays detected by the RHESSI spacecraft. The reconnection sites are low, near heights of 5-10 Mm. These images and event timings provide the long-desired direct evidence that semi-relativistic electrons energized in magnetic reconnection regions produce type III radio bursts. Not all the observed reconnection events produce X-ray events or coronal or interplanetary type III bursts; thus different special conditions exist for electrons leaving reconnection regions to produce observable radio, EUV, UV, and X-ray bursts.
Volume
8
Start page
1676
Uri
Url
Issn Identifier
2045-2322
Ads BibCode
2018NatSR...8.1676C
Rights
open.access
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