Thermal self-focusing during solar flares

Abstract

By solving a nonlinear equation for a heat source with a power proportional to Т^β (β > 1), it is shown that heat localization in the transverse cross section of a magnetic tube with a classical thermal conductivity occurs in the blowup regime in the form of microstructures—temperature background cells bounded by hot walls with a spatial scale of <100 m. The reduction in the integral X-ray emissivity observed on board of spacecrafts in the early stage of the flare is attributed to thermal self-focusing, i.e., a decrease in the factor of filling of the flare volume with hot plasma due to the narrowing of the hot walls of the microstructure.