PARTICLE ACCELERATION BY MAGNETIC RECONNECTION IN A TWISTED CORONAL LOOP

Photospheric motions may lead to twisted coronal magnetic fields which contain free energy that can be released by reconnection. Browning & Van der Linden suggested that such a relaxation event may be triggered by the onset of ideal kink instability. In the present work, we study the evolution of a twisted magnetic flux tube with zero net axial current following Hood et al. Based on the obtained magnetic and electric fields, proton and electron trajectories are calculated using the test-particle approach. We discuss resulting particle distributions and possible observational implications, for example, for small solar flares.