The heavy-ion compositional signature in He-3-rich solar particle events

G. M. Mason, D. V. Reames, T. T. von Rosenvinge, B. Klecker, D. Hovestadt
1986 Astrophysical Journal  
A survey of the ~1 MeV/nucleon heavy ion abundances in 66 3 He-rich solar particle events has been performed using the Max-Planck-Institut/University of Maryland and Goddard Space Flight Center instruments on the ISEE-3 spacecraft. The observations were carried out in interplanetary space over the period 1978 October through 1982 June. We confirm earlier observations which show an enrichment of heavy ions in 3 He-rich events, relative to the average solar energetic particle composition in large
more » ... particle events. For our survey near 1.5 MeV/nucleon the enrichments compared to large solar particle events are approximately **He:C:0:Ne:Mg:Si:Fe = 0.44:0.66:1. :3.4 :3.5 :4.1:9.6. Surprising new results emerging from the present broad survey are (1) the heavyion enrichment pattern is the same within a factor of ~2 for almost all cases, and (2) the degree of heavy ion enrichment is uncorrelated with the 3 He enrichment. Overall, the features established here appear to be best explained by an acceleration mechanism in which the 3 He enrichment process is not responsible for the heavy ion enrichment, but rather the heavy ion enrichment is a measure of the ambient coronal composition at the sites where the 3 He-rich events occur.
doi:10.1086/164133 fatcat:rzokcbpxcvezncvjck4iabj5e4