TIME AND SPACE DISTRIBUTION OF DISCRETE ENERGETIC RELEASES IN MILLIMETER-WAVE SOLAR-BURSTS

Observations of solar bursts using the multiple-beam technique define unambiguously the fast time structures present in the flux time profil es, providing, at the same time, their spatial positions. A method was developed to identify these structures and was used in the analysis o f two solar events observed at 48 GHz. The bursts' energy content at d ifferent time intervals was found to be directly proportional to the n umber of structures in the same intervals, confirming earlier findings that the microwave burst emission is quantized in energy. The discret e structures are found to be spatially scattered, exhibiting angular s eparations of up to 25 ''. The results favor models of plasma instabil ities that produce multiple discrete elementary energy injections scat tered in space and time.