On the Properties of Solar Energetic Particle Events Associated with Metric Type II Radio Bursts

Abstract

Metric type II solar radio bursts and solar energetic particles (SEPs) are both associated with shock fronts driven by coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the solar corona. Recent studies of ground level enhancements (GLEs), regular large solar energetic particle (SEP) events and filament eruption (FE) associated large SEP events have shown that SEP events are organized by spectral index of proton fluence spectra and by the average starting frequencies of the associated type II radio bursts. Both these results indicate a hierarchical relationship between CME kinematics and SEP event properties. In this study, we expand the investigations to fluence spectra and the longitudinal extent of metric type II associated SEP events including low-intensity SEP events. We utilize SEP measurements of particle instruments on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft together with radio bursts observations by ground-based radio observatories during solar cycle 24. Our results show that low-intensity SEP events follow the hierarchy of spectral index or the hierarchy of the starting frequency of type II radio bursts. We also find indications of a trend between the onset frequency of metric type II bursts and the estimated longitudinal extent of the SEP events although the scatter of data points is quite large. These two results strongly support the idea of SEP acceleration by shocks. Stronger shocks develop closer to the Sun.