Constraints on energy release in solar flares from RHESSI and GOES X-ray observations. II. Energetics and energy partition

A cartoon based on a thorough statistical study of flare energetics, thus achieving the degree of significance warranting this beautiful color rendition of the usual cartoon. The idea of direct heating is an important one, well recognized since the Skylab era, but is there actually any evidence for it, beyond the heating mediated by particle acceleration to many times kT?

      Note the lack of a cusp geometry, and no implication of magnetic reconnection here - is this a modest rejection of the CSHKP paradigm? In any case it nicely represents a simple loop flare, and this Archive does not contain many others that do that. It is worth noting also that the location of the "direct heating" and of the particle acceleration remain observationally obscure.