An upper limit on the hardness of the nonthermal electron spectra produced during the flash phase of solar flares.

The observations of impulsive solar-flare X-rays above 10 keV made with OGO-5 satellite have been analyzed in order to study the variation of the nonthermal electron spectrum from one flare to another. The X-ray spectrum at the maxima of 129 impulsive X-ray bursts is represented by KE to the minus-gamma power photons per sq cm per sec per keV, and the frequency of occurrence of bursts with different values of gamma is studied. It is found that for gamma less than 4.0 the frequency of bursts rapidly decreases with the decrease in the value of gamma. The probability of occurrence of a burst with gamma less than 2.3 is extremely small.