Solar Energetic Particles and Interacting CMEs: Cause or Coincidence?

Details Solar Energetic Particles and Interacting CMEs: Cause or Coincidence? Solar Energetic Particles and Interacting CMEs: Cause or Coincidence?

Dec 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agufmsh62a..02m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2002, abstract #SH62A-02

Physics

2118 Energetic Particles, Solar, 7513 Coronal Mass Ejections, 7514 Energetic Particles (2114), 7807 Charged Particle Motion And Acceleration, 7851 Shock Waves

Scientific paper

A recent study by Gopalswamy et al. has determined that more than 80 percent of the largest solar energetic particle (SEP) events during solar cycle 23 were associated with interacting coronal mass ejections (CMEs), suggesting that such interactions somehow facilitate SEP acceleration processes. Using data for 44 large SEP events from the Solar Isotope Spectrometer on ACE, we examine this hypothesis by searching for compositional and spectral signatures of possible CME interactions and by measuring the time-of-acceleration of high-energy protons and heavier ions near the Sun. For heavy ions we illustrate an approach that makes use of the measured mass and kinetic energy to compute particle velocity to an accuracy of ~0.1 percent. By comparing the inferred particle acceleration times near the Sun with CME trajectories measured by SOHO, and assuming that it is a shock driven by the fastest CME that accelerates the particles, we find that in many events the acceleration of high energy protons and heavy ions begins within a few solar radii of the Sun. By comparing the time and location where acceleration begins in a sample of magnetically well-connected events with the time and location of possible CME interactions in the same event, we find that in most cases particle acceleration begins well before the primary CME has had an opportunity to interact with preceding CMEs. We conclude that CME interactions are not a necessary condition or cause of particle acceleration in most large SEP events.

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