Magnetic Reconnection during the Post-impulsive Phase of a Long-duration Solar Flare: Bidirectional Outflows as a Cause of Microwave and X-Ray Bursts

The gradual phase of an eruptive solar flare has settled comfortably into the pattern envisioned in the CSHKP picture, and now that has been substantially embellished by the newly arrived microwave capability at the Owens Valley Radio Observatory. One of the key ingredients here is the presence of reverse-slope drifts paired with normal forward-slope ones, a smoking gun for the association with X-point reconnection. As the paper notes, the current sheet extends to extraordinary heights; it describes an X-point location 180,000 km above the surface of the Sun, a region presumably devoid of much energy or many particles. But the picture also leaves from for access to plenty of energy, and plenty of particles, via its closed-field loop structure rooted in the chromosphere.