Physical parameters in long-decay coronal enhancements

Abstract

X-ray images have been studied quantitatively to determine electron temperature and density as functions of time in two long-decay X-ray enhancements (LDE's). This is the first study of the X-ray emission from LDE's to include all corrections for scattering and vignetting. Derived electron density is about twice that found by Vorpahl et al. (1977) and by Smith et al. (1977) in the same events. Our results are combined with those for two other LDE's to find their general characteristics. The LDE's all had the form of arcades of very bright loops which were 1–3 × 10⁶ K hotter at the apices than along the legs. This temperature structure was maintained for at least 8 hr in each case. From this it is inferred that continual heating was taking place at the loop apices. Each LDE was preceded by a filament eruption and a white-light transient. Each was associated with a loop prominence system (LPS) composed of cool (T _e < 10⁵ K) loops nested 2–8 × 10³ km below the hot LDE loops. And, although the energy release rates in the four events varied greatly even 4 hr after onset, they all had similar growth rates (loop height vs time ≅ 1 km s⁻¹). Event lifetimes were very long, from 24 to 72 hr. After a survey of published models, it is concluded that only a magnetic reconnection model (e.g., Kopp and Pneuman, 1976) is consistent with these observations of the LDE-LPS phenomenon.