Interplanetary transport of decay protons from solar flare neutrons

Abstract

view Abstract Citations (54) References (32) Co-Reads Similar Papers Volume Content Graphics Metrics Export Citation NASA/ADS Interplanetary Transport of Decay Protons from Solar Flare Neutrons Ruffolo, D. Abstract Models for the propagation of protons produced by the decay of solar flare neutrons have been developed. These models are applied to the observation of such protons on 1982 June 3 and 1984 April 25. Numerical simulations treating the deposition, pitch-angle scattering, and adiabatic focusing of neutron-decay protons have been performed. Fitting these simulations to the measurements of the time evolution of the decay proton flux strongly constraints the interplanetary scattering mean free path to be 0.26 +/- 0.05 AU on 1982 June 3 and 0.37 +/- 0.06 AU on 1984 April 25. Power-law exponents are derived for the energy spectra of parent neutrons of differential 26.5-147 MeV that range from -1.7 to -1.9 for the 1982 flare and from -1.2 to -1.4 for the 1984 flare. In addition, the evolution of the neutron-decay proton flux seems to imply that the neutron emission was either nonisotropic or occurred over a time of several minutes. Publication: The Astrophysical Journal Pub Date: December 1991 DOI: 10.1086/170756 Bibcode: 1991ApJ...382..688R Keywords: Interplanetary Medium; Protons; Radiation Transport; Solar Flares; Solar Neutrinos; Decay; Energetic Particles; International Sun Earth Explorer 3; Mathematical Models; Solar Radiation; Solar Physics; ELEMENTARY PARTICLES; INTERPLANETARY MEDIUM; SUN: FLARES; SUN: PARTICLE EMISSION full text sources ADS |