Long duration flares (LDEs) during the minimum of solar activity Original Research Article

During the period of a low solar activity, numerous X-ray flares of the GOES class from A to C are observed. We are searching for a counterpart of the long-duration flares among these low intensity events, i.e., we are looking for flares with decay times longer than 1 h and the GOES classes less than C6. We are using data obtained from the GOES satellites. In the period of time between February 1994 and November 1997 we have found about 250 events fulfilling the criteria mentioned above. We analysed the morphology and physical parameters of these low intensity flares using the Yohkoh/SXT images. We have also performed statistical analysis of all the observed events.