DETERMINATION OF STOCHASTIC ACCELERATION MODEL CHARACTERISTICS IN SOLAR FLARES
- Department of Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 (United States)
Following our recent paper, we have developed an inversion method to determine the basic characteristics of the particle acceleration mechanism directly and non-parametrically from observations under the leaky box framework. Earlier, we demonstrated this method for obtaining the energy dependences of the escape time and pitch angle scattering time. Here, by converting the Fokker-Planck equation to its integral form, we derive the energy dependences of the energy diffusion coefficient and direct acceleration rate for stochastic acceleration in terms of the accelerated and escaping particle spectra. Combining the regularized inversion method of Piana et al. and our procedure, we relate the acceleration characteristics in solar flares directly to the count visibility data from RHESSI. We determine the timescales for electron escape, pitch angle scattering, energy diffusion, and direct acceleration at the loop top acceleration region for two intense solar flares based on the regularized electron flux spectral images. The X3.9 class event shows dramatically different energy dependences for the acceleration and scattering timescales, while the M2.1 class event shows a milder difference. The discrepancy between the M2.1 class event and the stochastic acceleration model could be alleviated by a turbulence spectrum that is much steeper than the Kolmogorov-type spectrum. A likely explanation of the X3.9 class event could be that the escape of electrons from the acceleration region is not governed by a random walk process, but instead is affected by magnetic mirroring, in which the scattering time is proportional to the escape time and has an energy dependence similar to the energy diffusion time.
- OSTI ID:
- 22270673
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 777, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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