Solar Energetic Particles: Spatial Extent and Implications of the H and He Abundances

Abstract: One of the earliest indicators of the importance of shock acceleration of solar energetic particles (SEPs) was the broad spatial extent of the "gradual" SEP events produced as the shock waves, driven by wide, fast coronal mass ejections (CMEs), expand across the Sun with cross-field transport mediated by the shocks. Contrasting "impulsive" SEP events, with characteristic enhancements of 3He and of heavy elements, are now associated with magnetic reconnection on open field lines in solar jets. However, large shock waves can also traverse pools of residual impulsive suprathermal ions and jets can produce fast CMEs that drive shock waves; in both cases shocks reaccelerate ions with the "impulsive" abundance signatures as well as coronal plasma. These more-complex events produce "excess protons" that identify this process, and recently, differences in the distribution of 4He abundances have also been found to depend upon the combination of seed population and acceleration mode. Extreme differences in the 4He abundances may reflect underlying differences in the abundances of the coronal regions being sampled by solar jets and, surprisingly, SEP events where shock waves sample two seed-particle populations seem to have about twice the 4He/O ratio of those with a single source.