PARTICLE-ACCELERATION IN RECONNECTING CURRENT SHEETS

We study motions of charged particles in reconnecting current sheets ( CS) which have both transverse (perpendicular to the current sheet pla ne) and longitudinal (parallel to the electric current inside the shee t) components of the magnetic field. Such CS, called non-neutral, are formed in regions of magnetic field line reconnection in the solar atm osphere. We develop an analytical technique which allows us to reprodu ce previous results concerning the influence of transverse fields on p article motion and acceleration. This technique also allows us to eval uate the effect of the longitudinal field. The latter increases consid erably the efficiency of particle acceleration in CS. The energizing o f electrons during the main phase of solar flares can be interpreted a s their acceleration in non-neutral CS.