The PI will investigate energy release in solar flares by: (i) incorporating a nonuniform guide field and/or a larger coronal density in the electron-heated models in order to try and suppress the blueshifted component of the soft X-ray line profiles, thereby bringing them more into line with observation; (ii) exploring models to explain the hard X-ray/soft X-ray correlation; (iii) developing our impulsive coronal energy release model to include line-tying effects and (non-adiabatic) conductive and convective cooling; (iv) investigating the role of the high-energy radiation itself in the flare energy budget.
