Abundances, Ionization States, Temperatures, and FIP in Solar Energetic Particles

Abstract

The relative abundances of chemical elements and isotopes have been our most effective tool in identifying and understanding energetic particles. The early surprise in solar energetic particles (SEPs) was 1000-fold enhancements in 3He/4He from resonant wave-particle interactions in the small "impulsive" SEP events that emit electron beams that produce type III radio bursts. Further studies found enhancements in Fe/O, then extreme enhancements in abundances that increase with mass-to-charge ratio A/Q by a factor of 1000 from He to Pb arising in magnetic reconnection on open field lines in solar jets. In contrast, in the largest SEP events, the "gradual" events, acceleration occurs at shock waves driven out from the Sun by fast, wide coronal mass ejections (CMEs). Averaging many events provides a measure of solar coronal abundances, but A/Q-dependent scattering during transport causes variations with time; thus if Fe scatters less than O, Fe/O is enhanced early and depleted later. To complicate matters, shock waves often reaccelerate impulsive suprathermal ions above active regions that have spawned many impulsive events. Since both impulsive and gradual SEP events have abundance enhancements that vary as powers of A/Q, we can use abundances to deduce Q-values and 1 - 3 MK source plasma temperatures during acceleration. Comparing coronal abundances from SEPs and from the slow solar wind as a function of the first ionization potential (FIP) of the elements, remaining differences are for the elements C, P, and S. The theory of the fractionation of ions by Alfvén waves shows that C, P, and S are suppressed because of wave resonances during chromospheric transport on closed magnetic loops but not on open magnetic fields that supply the solar wind. Shock waves can accelerate ions from closed coronal loops that easily escape as SEPs, while the solar wind must emerge on open fields.

35 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in Space Sci. Rev

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