High-Energy Solar Physics

Abstract This chapter deals generally with the high-energy astrophysics of the Sun, specifically with solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), but it also touches on the whole range of nonthermality or departures from Maxwellian distributions in solar plasmas. Radio, x-ray, and γ-ray observations provide primary remote-sensing observations of these departures, but such signatures can be hidden by brighter thermal emissions that may not be as fundamental in physics events. The solar paradigm for flare/CME development appears to match many of the new stellar observations of similar phenomena, but the limitations of observational sensitivity mean that we have few direct observations of the expected hard x-rays and none at all of the γ-rays that could confirm this.