Use of RHESSI observations to determine the origin and fate of non-thermal flare electrons Original Research Article

Most analyses of the characteristics of hard X-ray emission from solar flares have relied on observations of the spectral, temporal and spatial intensity distribution obtained by different instruments and, in the majority of cases, different events. The Reuven Ramaty High Energy Spectroscopic Imager gives us the possibility of combining all three fundamental parameters in a single set of observations from the same instrument. In this paper, we describe a method to compute the distribution of hard X-ray emission in flare loops, which can be used to determine the characteristics of electron energization, transport and thermalization during short lived impulsive peaks.