Solar neutrons have been detected using the neutron monitor located at Mt. Chacaltaya, Bolivia, in association with a large solar flare on November 24, 2000. This is the first detection of solar neutrons by the neutron monitor that have been reported so far in solar cycle 23. The statistical significance of the detection is 5.5 σ.In this flare, the intense emission of hard X-rays and γ-rays has been observed by the Yohkoh Hard X-ray Telescope (HXT) and Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS), respectively. The production time of solar neutrons is better correlated with those of hard X-rays and γ-rays than with the production time of soft Xrays. The observations of the solar neutrons on the ground have been limited to solar flares with soft X-ray class greater than X8 in former solar cycles. In this cycle, however, neutrons were detected associated with an X2.3 solar flare on November 24, 2000. This is the first report of the detection of solar neutrons on the ground associated with a solar flare with its X-ray class smaller than X8.

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The SOLAR-A spacecraft has spectroscopic capabilities in a wide energy band from soft X-rays to gamma-rays. The Wide Band Spectrometer (WBS), consisting of three kinds of spectrometers, soft X-ray spectrometer (SXS), hard X-ray spectrometer (HXS) and gamma-ray spectrometer (GRS), is installed on SOLAR-A to investigate plasma heating, high-energy particle acceleration, and interaction processes. SXS has two proportional counters and each counter provides 128-channel pulse height data in the 2-30 keV range every 2 s and 2-channel pulse count data every 0.25 s. HXS has a NaI scintillation detector and provides 32-channel pulse height data in the 20-400 keV range every 1 s and 2-channel pulse count data every 0.125 s. GRS has two identical BGO scintillation detectors and each detector provides 128-channel pulse height data in the 0.2-10 MeV range every 4 s and 4-channel pulse count data (0.2-0.7, 0.7-4, 4-7, and 7-10 MeV) every 0.25-0.5 s. In addition, each of the BGO scintillation detectors provides 16-channel pulse height data in the 8-100 MeV range every 4 s and 2-channel pulse count data (8-30 and 30-100 MeV) every 0.5 s. The SXS observations enable one to study the thermal evolution of flare plasma by obtaining time series of electron temperatures and emission measures of hot plasma; the HXS observations enable one to study the electron acceleration and heating mechanisms by obtaining time series of the electron spectrum; and the GRS observations enable one to study the high-energy electron and ion acceleration and interaction processes by obtaining time series of electron and ion spectra.

The flare catalogue of the Yohkoh mission is compiled and linked to this article as an electronic supplement. For showing flare characteristics over wide energy range concisely, we provide the images of Hard X-ray Telescope (HXT) and the Soft X-ray Telescope (SXT), and the spectra of Hard X-ray Spectrometer (HXS) and Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (GRS) with the Wide Band Spectrometer (WBS) time profiles. The energy versus pulse height (PH) data channels in HXS and GRS are re-calibrated by using the data of the whole mission period. Secular gain changes are recognized 352 J. SATO ET AL. in HXS, and the characteristics of power-law flare spectra simultaneously observed by HXT and HXS confirms the trend. The GRS gains are different for the flare observations during the previous maximum and for the current maximum. The total of 33 γ -ray events are observed, and for 12 of them γ -ray flare spectra are obtained.