Microwave Type III Pair Bursts in Solar Flares

A solar microwave type III pair burst is composed of normal and reverse-sloped (RS) burst branches with oppositely fast frequency drifts. It is the most sensitive signature of the primary energy release and electron accelerations in flares. This work reports 11 microwave type III pair events in 9 flares observed by radio spectrometers in China and the Czech Republic at a frequency of 0.80–7.60 GHz during 1994–2014. These type III pairs occurred in flare impulsive and postflare phases with separate frequencies in the range of 1.08–3.42 GHz and a frequency gap of 10–1700 MHz. The frequency drift increases with the separate frequency (fx), the lifetime of each burst is anti-correlated to fx, while the frequency gap is independent of fx. In most events, the normal branches are drifting obviously faster than the RS branches. The type III pairs occurring in flare impulsive phase have lower separate frequencies, longer lifetimes, wider frequency gaps, and slower frequency drifts than that occurring in postflare phase. Also, the latter always has strong circular polarization. Further analysis indicates that near the flare energy release sites the plasma density is about cm−3 and the temperature is higher than 107 K. These results provide new constraints to the acceleration mechanism in solar flares.