Hard Solar X-Ray Bursts

Extract

A tentative spectrum of the Sun in the X-ray region is shown in Figure 1 (De Jager, 1967). The quiet Sun emits a measurable spectrum at photon energies below about 3 keV. During the occurrence of solar flares an enhancement of the emitted energy, and a hardening of the spectrum is clearly visible. The soft X-ray bursts apparently show a maximum radiation flux at wavelengths of about 10 Å.

In the spectral region above about 10 keV hardly any quiet solar radiation is observable. During the occurrence of solar flares hard X-ray bursts are occasionally observed. From the point of view of observational techniques these bursts may be divided in the so-called deka-keV bursts, covering the range 10-200 keV, and the deci-MeV bursts in the range between 0·2 and 1 MeV. Many deka-keV bursts have been observed during the years 1966-67 by Winckler et al., by means of the OGO-I and OGO-III satellites (see Arnoldy et al., 1967). The existence of deci-MeV bursts has been doubted various times (see e.g. Chubb et al., 1966). Its reality seems now to be proved (see also De Jager, 1967). However, they may be much rarer than the deka-keV bursts, although it is not yet completely sure that the selection is not observational.