PARTICLE ACCELERATION IN PLASMOID EJECTIONS DERIVED FROM RADIO DRIFTING PULSATING STRUCTURES

Journal Article · Sun Feb 01 04:00:00 EST 2015 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/799/2/126· OSTI ID:22364414

Nishizuka, N. ^[1]; Karlický, M.; Bárta, M. ^[2]

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1. National Institute of Information and Communications Technology, 4-2-1, Nukui-Kitamachi, Koganei, Tokyo 184-8795 (Japan)
2. Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, 25165 Ondřejov (Czech Republic)

We report observations of slowly drifting pulsating structures (DPSs) in the 0.8-4.5 GHz frequency range of the RT4 and RT5 radio spectrographs at Ondřejov Observatory, between 2002 and 2012. We found 106 events of DPSs, which we classified into four cases: (I) single events with a constant frequency drift (12 events), (II) multiple events occurring in the same flare with constant frequency drifts (11 events), (III) single or multiple events with increasing or decreasing frequency drift rates (52 events), and (IV) complex events containing multiple events occurring at the same time in a different frequency range (31 events). Many DPSs are associated with hard X-ray (HXR) bursts (15-25 keV) and soft X-ray (SXR) gradient peaks, as they typically occurred at the beginning of HXR peaks. This indicates that DPS events are related to the processes of fast energy release and particle acceleration. Furthermore, interpreting DPSs as signatures of plasmoids, we measured their ejection velocity, their width, and their height from the DPS spectra, from which we also estimated the reconnection rate and the plasma beta. In this interpretation, constant frequency drift indicates a constant velocity of a plasmoid, and an increasing/decreasing frequency drift indicates a deceleration/acceleration of a plasmoid ejection. The reconnection rate shows a good positive correlation with the plasmoid velocity. Finally we confirmed that some DPS events show plasmoid counterparts in Solar Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly images.

• OSTI ID: 22364414
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 799; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ACCELERATION
CORRELATIONS
EMISSION SPECTRA
GAMMA RADIATION
GHZ RANGE
HARD X RADIATION
IMAGES
KEV RANGE
MAGNETIC RECONNECTION
PLASMA
PLASMOIDS
SOFT X RADIATION
SUN
VELOCITY