Rapidly time variable phenomena: Jets, explosive events, and flares

Recent observations and related theoretical works on rapidly time variable phenomena such as jets, explosive events, flares, etc., are reviewed with emphasis on the role of magnetic reconnection. The phenomena discussed in this paper include X-ray jets, H alpha surges, EUV jets/explosive events, transient brightenings (microflares), X-ray plasmoid ejections, H alpha filament eruptions, and flares. Many of observational material are from Yohkoh soft X-ray observations, including also ground based observations coordinated with Yohkoh. A unified model based on the magnetic reconnection hypothesis is presented to understand these (apparently different) phenomena.