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Solar flares are powered by the catastrophic release of magnetic energy through "magnetic reconnection" - the breaking and reconnecting of oppositely directed magnetic field lines. Flares are also highly efficient particle accelerators, capable of accelerating a significant fraction of the ambient particles to high energies within a short time. Thanks to their proximity, solar flares serve as an excellent laboratory to study these fundamental physical processes in a level of detail unable to achieve in other astrophysical plasma environments.
The unique sensitivity of radio emissions to both the rapidly evolving magnetic field and high-energy electrons makes it an excellent tool for probing the "central engine" of solar flares. In the past decade, we have enjoyed a major transition in solar radio observing: it has evolved from imaging at a few discrete frequencies to broadband imaging spectroscopy, offering us an unprecedented view of the underlying processes. In this talk, I will highlight some of our recent results based on this new technique, using data from the Expanded Owens Valley Solar Array and the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array. |