Physics – Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
Nov 1998
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1998aps..dpp.c2m02l&link_type=abstract
American Physical Society, Division of Plasma Physics Meeting, November 16-20, 1998 New Orleans, LA, abstract #C2M.02
Physics
Plasma Physics
Scientific paper
The Sun is the most powerful particle accelerator in the solar system, accelerating ions up to tens of GeV and electrons to hundreds of MeV during solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Solar flares release up to 10^32- 10^33 ergs in 10^2-10^3 s. The accelerated 10-100 keV electrons (and possibly >1 MeV ions) appear to contain a significant fraction of this energy, indicating that the particle acceleration and energy release processes are in- timately linked. How the Sun releases this energy, presuma- bly stored in the magnetic fields of the corona, and how it rapidly accelerates electrons and ions with such high effi- ciency, and to such high energies, is presently unknown. CMEs eject 10^15-10^16 g of coronal material at speeds of 100-1000 km/s into the interplanetary medium. Fast CMEs drive shock waves which accelerate particles to produce the intense solar energetic particle events that can be harmful to astronauts. The Sun also accelerates particles in the absence of transient energy releases, through solar wind stream-stream interactions and interactions with the heliosphere boundary. The present ideas for the physics in- volved and plans for new observations will be reviewed.
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