Energy release in solar flares Original Research Article

One of the basic features of solar flares is the very fast heating of large plasma volumes. A significant fraction of the hot flare plasma is contained in X-ray kernels which are situated near the tops of flaring loops (loop-top flare kernels). In the present paper it is argued that in the flare kernels a chain (cascade) of violent reconnections develops, as a result of which the kernels are filled with many transient reconnection sites, so that the flare energy release occurs over a large plasma volume. Formation of the kernels is briefly discussed. It is suggested how such turbulent model of the flare energy release can also explain basic features of the flare impulsive phase, i.e. acceleration of a large number of electrons in very short time.