Understanding the white-light flare on 2012 March 9: evidence of a two-step magnetic reconnection

Consideration of how a white-light flare must work suggests to the authors... magnetic reconnection! And more magnetic reconnection! That would not be very novel, but the proposal here is that two stages of reconnection are happening. The first would be in strongly sheared un-erupted field, and the second would be in the CSHKP scenario where previously opened fields can close down and release that additional magnetic energy. This distinction makes sense; ever since Skylab [1] we have distinguished impulsive-phase energy (the white-light flare) and gradual-phase energy (the dipolarization) shrinkage.

      As a critique of the cartoon itself, the colors are quite nice and the field lines (as drawn) have lives of their own; there is a nice hint that the strapping field (the thick "line" itself) somehow provides the late-phase energy by mysteriously reconnecting with itself. Of course, such a cartoon does not even try to tackle the question of energetics (why does the flare happen?) by ignoring coronal current systems, inductive storage, and global flows.

[1] Skylab