Slowly but surely towards the huge amount of energy I

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Number:	162
1st Author:	Urszula Bak-Steślicka
2nd Author:	Tomasz Mrozek
Published:	31 October 2011
Next Nugget:	Slowly II
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Introduction

Solar flares may have complicated structures and time developments, but since Skylab days we have distinguished "impulsive" and "gradual" classes. A Long Duration Event (LDE) is a flare characterized by a slow decrease of the soft X-ray (SXR) emission. The decay phase of an LDE may last more than one day. Some of LDEs have also the unusually long rising phase that may last more than 30 minutes. This group is called slow long-duration events (SLDEs). During the rising phase of an SLDE there is no typical impulsive phase 1. Instead of short pulses we observe a gradual increase of HXR emission and/or a smooth, broad (several minutes long) bursts of HXR emission (see Figure 1). RHESSI's first X-class flare was just such an event.

References

1 "Hard X-rays from 'Slow LDEs'"