How efficient are coronal mass ejections at accelerating solar energetic particles?
Abstract
The largest solar energetic particle (SEP) events are thought to be due to particle acceleration at a shock driven by a fast coronal mass ejection (CME). We investigate the efficiency of this process by comparing the total energy content of energetic particles with the kinetic energy of the associated CMEs. The energy content of 23 large SEP events from 1998 through 2003 is estimated based on data from ACE, GOES, and SAMPEX, and interpreted using the results of particle transport simulations and inferred longitude distributions. CME data for these events are obtained from SOHO. When compared to the estimated kinetic energy of the associated coronal mass ejections (CMEs), it is found that large SEP events can extract ~10% or more of the CME kinetic energy. The largest SEP events appear to require massive, very energetic CMEs.
Additional Information
© 2008 American Institute of Physics. This work was supported by NASA under grants NAG5-12929, NNG04GB88B, and NNX06AC21G. We appreciate the availability of GOES data from NOAA and CME data from SOHO. We acknowledge helpful suggestions by Dave McComas. Finally, we thank the organizers for a very productive and enjoyable conference.Attached Files
Published - MEWaipcp08.pdf
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Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 14258
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20090518-130926006
- NASA
- NAG5-12929
- NASA
- NNG04GB88B
- NASA
- NNX06AC21G
- Created
-
2009-08-18Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
-
2021-11-08Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Space Radiation Laboratory
- Series Name
- AIP Conference Proceedings
- Series Volume or Issue Number
- 1039
- Other Numbering System Name
- Space Radiation Laboratory
- Other Numbering System Identifier
- 2006-11