Particle Acceleration and Their Escape into the Heliosphere in Solar Flares with Open Magnetic Field

Abstract

Energetic particle populations in the solar corona and in the heliosphere appear to have different characteristics even when produced in the same solar flare. It is not clear what causes this difference: properties of the acceleration region, the large-scale magnetic field configuration in the flare, or particle transport effects, such as scattering. In this study, we use a combination of magnetohydrodynamic and test-particle approaches to investigate magnetic reconnection, particle acceleration, and transport in two solar flares: an M-class flare on 2013 June 19, and an X-class flare on 2011 September 6. We show that in both events, the same regions are responsible for the acceleration of particles remaining in the coronal and being ejected toward the heliosphere. However, the magnetic field structure around the acceleration region acts as a filter, resulting in different characteristics (such as energy spectra) acquired by these two populations. We argue that this effect is an intrinsic property of particle acceleration in the current layers created by the interchange reconnection, and therefore, may be ubiquitous, particularly, in noneruptive solar flares with substantial particle emission into the heliosphere.

Keywords

• Solar flares
• Solar energetic particles
• Computational methods