Particle acceleration is one of the most significant features that are ubiquitous among space and cosmic plasmas. It is most prominent during flares in the case of the Sun, with which huge amount of electromagnetic radiation and high-energy particles
are expelled into the interplanetary space through acceleration of plasma particles in the corona. Though it has been well understood that energies of flares are supplied by the mechanism called magnetic reconnection based on the observations in X-rays and EUV with space telescopes, where and how in the flaring magnetic field plasmas are accelerated has remained unknown due to the low plasma density in the flaring corona. We here report the first observational identification of the energetic non-thermal electrons around the point of the ongoing magnetic reconnection (X-point); with the location of the X-point identified by soft X-ray imagery and the localized presence of non-thermal electrons identified from imaging-spectroscopic data at two microwave frequencies. Considering the existence of the reconnection outflows that carries both plasma particles and magnetic fields out from the X-point, our identified non-thermal microwave emissions around the X-point indicate that the electrons are accelerated around the reconnection X-point. Additionally, the plasma around the X-point was also thermally heated up to 10 MK. The estimated reconnection rate of this event is ~0.017.
The X-Ray Telescope (XRT) onboard the Hinode satellite is an X-ray imager that observes the solar corona with the capability of diagnosing coronal temperatures from less than 1 MK to more than 10 MK. To make full use of this capability, Narukage et a
l. (Solar Phys. 269, 169, 2011) determined the thickness of each of the X-ray focal-plane analysis filters based on calibration measurements from the ground-based end-to-end test. However, in their paper, the calibration of the thicker filters for observations of active regions and flares, namely the med-Be, med-Al, thick-Al and thick-Be filters, was insufficient due to the insufficient X-ray flux used in the measurements. In this work, we recalibrate those thicker filters using quiescent active region data taken with multiple filters of XRT. On the basis of our updated calibration results, we present the revised coronal-temperature-diagnostic capability of XRT.
The X-Ray Telescope (XRT) onboard the Hinode satellite is an X-ray imager that observes the solar corona with unprecedentedly high angular resolution (consistent with its 1 pixel size). XRT has nine X-ray analysis filters with different temperature r
esponses. One of the most significant scientific features of this telescope is its capability of diagnosing coronal temperatures from less than 1 MK to more than 10 MK, which has never been accomplished before. To make full use of this capability, accurate calibration of the coronal temperature response of XRT is indispensable and is presented in this article. The effect of on-orbit contamination is also taken into account in the calibration. On the basis of our calibration results, we review the coronal-temperature-diagnostic capability of XRT.
