A model for solar flares invoking weak double layers

A model has been proposed, suggesting that the energy release in a solar flare may be due to a large number of ion-acoustic double layers in the source region. De Jager et al. (1987) showed that the high-energy solar flare can be understood in terms of a consistent picture with a single electron population, where the hard X-ray bursts are due to thermal bremstrahlung and the millimeter microwave bursts are due to gyrosynchrotron radiation. The sites of energization and emission are virtually identical. It is concluded that the source region is characterized by an electron temperature Tc = 5 x 10 to the 8th K, an electron number density, n(c) of about 10 to the 17th/cu m, a magnetic field strength B valued between 0.14 and 0.20 T, and a linear size l(source) of about 350,000 m. The results are used to estimate whether a model invoking weak double layers is viable as an acceleration mechanism for the impulsive phase.