EFFECT OF COHERENT STRUCTURES ON ENERGETIC PARTICLE INTENSITY IN THE SOLAR WIND AT 1 AU

Journal Article · Sat Oct 10 00:00:00 EDT 2015 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/812/1/68· OSTI ID:22525263

Tessein, Jeffrey A.; Matthaeus, William H.; Wan, Minping ^[1]; Ruffolo, David ^[2]; Giacalone, Joe; Neugebauer, Marcia ^[3]

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1. Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19716 (United States)
2. Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Mahidol University, Bangkok 10400 (Thailand)
3. Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721 (United States)

We present results from an analysis of Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) observations of energetic particles in the 0.047–4.78 MeV range associated with shocks and discontinuities in the solar wind. Previous work found a strong correlation between coherent structures and energetic particles measured by ACE/EPAM. Coherent structures are identified using the Partial Variance of Increments (PVI) method, which is essentially a normalized vector increment. The correlation was based on a superposed epoch analysis using over 12 years of data. Here, we examine many individual high-PVI events to better understand this association emphasizing intervals selected from data with shock neighborhoods removed. We find that in many cases the local maximum in PVI is in a region of rising or falling energetic particle intensity, which suggests that magnetic discontinuities may act as barriers inhibiting the motion of energetic particles across them.

• OSTI ID: 22525263
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 812, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
ACCELERATION
CORRELATIONS
MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS
MEV RANGE
PLASMA
SHOCK WAVES
SOLAR PARTICLES
SOLAR WIND