A magnetic avalanche as the central engine powering a solar flare
Abstract
Solar flares are the most powerful, magnetically driven, explosions in the heliosphere. The nature of magnetic energy release in the solar corona that heats the plasma and accelerates particles in a flare, however, remains poorly understood. Here, we report high-resolution coronal observations of a flare by the Solar Orbiter mission that reveal initially weaker but rapid reconnection events, on timescales of a few seconds at most, leading to a more prominent activity of a similar nature that explosively causes a flare. Signatures of this process are further imprinted on the widespread raining plasma blobs with short lifetimes, giving rise to the characteristic ribbon-like emission pattern associated with the flare. Our observations unveil the central engine of a flare and emphasize the crucial role of an avalanche-like magnetic energy release mechanism at work.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2503.12235,
title = {A magnetic avalanche as the central engine powering a solar flare},
author = {L. P. Chitta and D. I. Pontin and E. R. Priest and D. Berghmans and E. Kraaikamp and L. Rodriguez and C. Verbeeck and A. N. Zhukov and S. Krucker and R. Aznar Cuadrado and D. Calchetti and J. Hirzberger and H. Peter and U. Schühle and S. K. Solanki and L. Teriaca and A. S. Giunta and F. Auchère and L. Harra and D. Müller},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.12235},
year = {2026}
}
Comments
Published in Astronomy&Astrophysics