The role of the big flare syndrome in correlations of solar energetic proton fluxes and associated microwave burst parameters

In the previous studies correlating E > 10 MeV proton fluxes and spectra with various associated microwave burst parameters, the resulting high correlations were assumed to reflect a common acceleration process for the protons and the microwave‐emitting electrons. We suggest and test an alternative explanation for these correlations, which we term the big flare syndrome (BFS), that states that, statistically, energetic flare phenomena are more intense in larger flares, regardless of the detailed physics. Peak 1–8 Å X ray fluxes, characteristic of the thermal flare, are correlated with peak proton fluxes to derive correlation coefficients characteristic of the BFS. Of all microwave parameters tested for the 1973–1979 period, only the time‐integrated flux densities at 8800 and 15,400 MHz may be significantly larger than expected from the BFS. We fail to confirm previous results associating peak proton spectra with peak microwave spectral characteristics, thus finding no evidence that peak microwave fluxes are indicative of proton acceleration. We extend this conclusion to peak hard X ray correlations. The strongly nonlinear relationship deduced between flare energy and proton production also appears invalid.