Non-thermal Electron Energization During the Impulsive Phase of an X9.3 Flare Revealed by Insight-HXMT

The X9.3 flare SOL20170906T11:55 was observed by the CsI detector aboard the first Chinese X-ray observatory Hard X-ray Modulation telescope (Insight-HXMT). Using the wavelets method, we report 22 s quasiperiodic pulsations during the impulsive phase. The spectra from 100 keV to 800 keV show the evolution with the gamma-ray flux of a power-law photon index from similar to 1.8 before the peak, similar to 2.0 around the flare peak, to similar to 1.8 again. The gyrosynchrotron microwave spectral analysis reveals a 36.'' 6 +/- 0.'' 6 radius gyrosynchrotron source with mean transverse magnetic field around 608.2 Gauss. The penetrated >= 10 keV non-thermal electron density is about 10(6.7) cm(-3) at peak time. The magnetic field strength followed the evolution of high-frequency radio flux. Further gyrosynchrotron source modeling analysis implies that there exists a quite steady gyrosynchrotron source, and the non-thermal electron density and transverse magnetic field evolution are similar to higher-frequency light curves. The temporal spectral analysis reveals that those non-thermal electrons are accelerated by repeated magnetic reconnection, likely from a lower corona source.

Automated summary

The article reports on the observation of an X9.3 flare by the first Chinese X-ray observatory, Insight-HXMT, using wavelets to detect 22-second quasi-periodic pulsations. Spectral analysis shows the evolution of non-thermal electron density and magnetic field strength over time, indicating that the non-thermal electrons may originate from a lower corona source.