Energetic Particle Spectral Variation Derived from Neutron and Gamma-Ray Observations of Solar Flares

Details Energetic Particle Spectral Variation Derived from Neutron and Gamma-Ray Observations of Solar Flares Energetic Particle Spectral Variation Derived from Neutron and Gamma-Ray Observations of Solar Flares

May 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002aas...200.2806m&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, 200th AAS Meeting, #28.06; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 34, p.680

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Neutron and gamma-ray data from the 1991 June 4 and 11 solar flares observed by CGRO/OSSE are used to explore the time variation of the accelerated-particle spectra. Because of the strong dependence of neutron production on the steepness of the energetic particle spectrum, neutron observations can reveal variations of the spectral index too subtle to be detected with observations of gamma-ray lines alone. We show that theoretical calculations of neutron and gamma-ray production provide a self-consistent understanding of these processes and that the combination of data is consistent with a power law spectral shape for particles accelerated in solar flares. For the June 4 flare in particular, the power-law index is unchanged across 2 orders of magnitude of particle energy, from a few MeV to a few hundred MeV. In both flares, the spectra hardened as the flares progressed, with a change in spectral index by as much as 1. Neutron data analyzed previously from two flares observed by SMM are reassessed and, using a revised SMM neutron response function, are also shown to be consistent with a power-law energetic-particle spectrum. This research was supported in part by NASA W19977.

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