  Where particle acceleration and plasma heating take place in relation to
magnetic reconnection is a fundamental question for solar flares. We report
analysis of an M7.7 flare on 2012 July 19 observed by SDO/AIA and RHESSI.
Bi-directional outflows in forms of plasmoid ejections and contracting
cusp-shaped loops originate between an erupting flux rope and underlying flare
loops at speeds of typically 200-300 km/s up to 1050 km/s. These outflows are
associated with spatially separated double coronal X-ray sources with centroid
separation decreasing with energy. The highest temperature is located near the
nonthermal X-ray loop-top source well below the original heights of contracting
cusps near the inferred reconnection site. These observations suggest that the
primary loci of particle acceleration and plasma heating are in the
reconnection outflow regions, rather than the reconnection site itself. In
addition, there is an initial ascent of the X-ray and EUV loop-top source prior
to its recently recognized descent, which we ascribe to the interplay among
multiple processes including the upward development of reconnection and the
downward contractions of reconnected loops. The impulsive phase onset is
delayed by 10 minutes from the start of the descent, but coincides with the
rapid speed increases of the upward plasmoids, the individual loop shrinkages,
and the overall loop-top descent, suggestive of an intimate relation of the
energy release rate and reconnection outflow speed.
