SPRG Seminars - Archive

August 30, 2005:

Reconnecting X-point Solar Flare Model: Energy Spectra and Chaos
Iain Hannah, SSL

I will be discussing the work I have done on a simple solar flare  model involving an arcade of reconnecting x-points. This has been  investigated analytically and through numerical simulations of test  particles, protons and electrons, in the electromagnetic field  configuration of a reconnecting x-point. I will show the resulting  proton and electron energy spectra one recovers from such a model,  and how these distributions change as we vary the setup of the x- point. Specifically the parameters we can change are the applied  electric field strength, the angle between the separatrices and the  magnetic field component parallel to the electric field. These  different parameters would be expected to vary during a flare and  so  we are trying to quantify the effect of  changing the parameters in  terms of the accelerated versus "heated" distributions. Time  permitting, I will also discuss how I have tried to objectively  quantify the chaotic behaviour of  the test particles as they move  through the non-adiabatic region close to the x-line  and how this  affects the energisation of the particles.

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