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Astrophysics and Space Science Library 438
George M. Simnett
Energetic Particles
in the Heliosphere
Energetic Particles in the Heliosphere
Astrophysics and Space Science Library
EDITORIAL BOARD
Chairman
W. B. BURTON, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville,
Virginia, U.S.A. ([email protected]); University of Leiden, The Netherlands
([email protected])
F. BERTOLA, University of Padua, Italy
C. J. CESARSKY, Commission for Atomic Energy, Saclay, France
P. EHRENFREUND, Leiden University, The Netherlands
O. ENGVOLD, University of Oslo, Norway
A. HECK, Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory, France
E. P. J. VAN DEN HEUVEL, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
V. M. KASPI, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
J. M. E. KUIJPERS, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
H. VAN DER LAAN, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
P. G. MURDIN, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK
B. V. SOMOV, Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University, Russia
R. A. SUNYAEV, Space Research Institute, Moscow, Russia
Energetic Particles
in the Heliosphere
123
George M. Simnett
Birmingham, United Kingdom
Cover illustration: The heliosheath. Red and blue spirals are the gracefully curving magnetic field lines
of orthodox models. New data from Voyager add a magnetic froth to the mix. Credit: NASA
In the 70 years since the end of WWII, we have gone from having just a few
people who suspected that space was populated with energetic particles to the
current situation whereby anyone who is interested can, through the literature and
the Internet, access the wealth of data on energetic particles in the heliosphere. The
cosmic rays were the first to be discovered in 1912. Chapman and Ferraro in 1930
suggested that magnetic storms were caused by plasma emitted from the Sun, but
their audience was small, as was the particle energy in the plasma. It wasn’t until the
1950s that we began to realise, mainly via high altitude balloon flights, that there
were lots of energetic particles “out there”.
Since 1960 many spacecraft have monitored not only energetic charged
particles but magnetic fields and electromagnetic radiation from radio wavelengths
to high energy -rays. Some have gone in towards the Sun, but the majority have
stayed around 1 AU. A few have ventured further afield, but only one, Ulysses,
has gone to high heliographic latitudes. The most ambitious mission has seen the
two Voyager spacecraft travel to the edge of the heliosphere (Voyager-2, 2015) and
beyond (Voyager-1, 2012). When the New Horizons spacecraft reached Pluto in July
2015 after an 8.5-year journey, it completed visits to all the Solar System planets.
There are currently, as far as I know, no approved missions which will go to a
region of the heliosphere which has not already been observed. Thus it is appropriate
to step back and examine what we have learnt over the last 70 years. We know that
the Sun is the engine powering the local acceleration of energetic particles. But
we don’t know with certainty how it does so. In our Galaxy and beyond, there are
individual particles that have energies of over 1020 eV, which is comparable to the
energy imparted to a tennis ball served by Djokovic. The Sun struggles to make it
much beyond 1010 eV.
I have addressed all the interesting phenomena that I am aware of regarding
energetic particles in the heliosphere. This inevitably brings in the magnetic field,
which I suspect is considerably more complex and transient than currently envis-
aged. Some of the planets themselves accelerate protons and electrons. Through
observing relativistic electrons, we can deduce that Jupiter is the most important
continuous source of energetic electrons, at least up to 20 MeV. By studying their
v
vi Preface
properties when they are detected near Earth, we can confirm theoretical models of
the heliospheric magnetic field in the ecliptic plane.
The examples that I have used stem from data that I am most familiar with.
Others could be cross that I have not referred to their work, for which I apologise.
One topic that is not addressed is the charge state of the detected energetic ions
coming from the Sun, other than for helium. For any event, the ions’ charge state
is a mixture of thermal and nonthermal ionization. Thermal ionization can only be
an approximation as the source at the Sun is almost certainly not in equilibrium and
probably never has been. Nonthermal ionization is virtually unknown as it requires
knowledge of the energy spectrum and elemental composition of the interacting
particles in the chromosphere/corona. There are so many unknown parameters that
understanding the truth is just like a “can of worms”.
The theoretical side of charged particle acceleration was investigated by my
colleague and friend Ed Roelof, with whom I shared an office in 1967 when we
were both at Goddard Space Flight Center. Ed made a valuable contribution to the
Corotating Interaction Region study, for which I thank him. Reluctantly he felt he
could not follow this up with a suitable account of charged particle acceleration at
the Sun and within coronal mass ejections.
Finally I wish to thank my colleagues for providing high-quality original figures
and Springer for inviting me to write this book.
1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The First Energetic Particle Observations Outside
the Magnetosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2 Instrumentation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3 Energetic Particle Acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.2 Acceleration Mechanisms.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2.1 Electron and Proton Acceleration .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.3 Where Does the Acceleration Take Place at Times of Flares? . . . . . 28
3.4 Spectral Evolution of the X-Ray Emission.. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.5 Location of the Acceleration.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.5.1 Coronal Acceleration .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.5.2 Acceleration in the Active Region . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.5.3 CME-Driven Shock Acceleration .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.6 Abundance Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.7 Application to Flares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.8 Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4 Solar Electrons as a Probe of the Inner Heliosphere .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.2 Sources of Energetic Electrons in the Inner Heliosphere .. . . . . . . . . . 47
4.2.1 Coronal Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.2.2 The Upper Energy of Impulsive Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.2.3 The Events in June 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.2.4 Analysis of Beamed Electron Events ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
vii
viii Contents
Just over a century ago cosmic rays were discovered. Around the turn of the C20th
it was recognised that the Earth’s atmosphere contained ions but the consensus
was that these originated from radiation coming from radioactive elements in the
Earth’s crust. Which was largely true. A dramatic confirmation of this comes from
gamma-ray detectors launched under balloons, which experience a rapid reduction
in counting rate as they move up a few hundred metres through the atmosphere. In
1912 Victor Hess took three electroscopes underneath a balloon up to an altitude
of 5 km and discovered that the radiation level at altitude was around three times
that on the ground. By the end of the 1920s it was generally agreed that the extra
radiation was coming from beyond the Earth. An exciting new field was born.
It was a natural consequence therefore to develop instruments to monitor this
radiation at ground level as it was impractical to do this full-time with instruments
flown under balloons. Starting in the 1930s an instrument developed by Compton
et al. (1934) was employed to study at ground level the intensity of the cosmic
rays. Simpson and colleagues developed this instrument into the neutron monitor
(Simpson et al. 1953) and today there is a world-wide network of neutron monitors
devoted to the study of high energy particles incident on the atmosphere.
The neutron monitor uses a proportional counter filled with gas which has a
significant amount of 10 BF3 . The 10 B isotope has a neutron capture cross-section
inversely proportional to the neutron velocity. When it captures a free neutron an
alpha particle is emitted via the following reaction:
10
B C n ) 11 B ) 7 Li C 4 HeCC C Q (1.1)
The alpha particle in general will lose its kinetic energy within the proportional
counter. Therefore by setting the pulse height threshold just under the alpha particle
energy most of the background can be eliminated. The next step is to increase the
Fig. 1.1 The neutron monitor developed by Simpson et al. (1953) (see text)
fast neutron production by surrounding the counter with lead. This makes use of
the fact that if a strongly-interacting particle hits a lead nucleus neutrons will be
emitted. The multiplicity of fast neutron production varies with atomic weight, A,
as A2=3 . Figure 1.1a shows a cross-section of one unit, which has two proportional
counters almost surrounded by lead. The whole is encased in paraffin wax which
slow down the fast neutrons coming from the lead nucleus and some of these will
be absorbed by the 10 B. Figure 1.1b shows a neutron monitor pile, extended to 12
of the counters shown in Fig. 1.1a.
During the 1940s Forbush (1946) was monitoring the galactic cosmic rays
with a network of ground-level neutron monitors and noticed two remarkable
things. He found that occasionally there was an increase in intensity followed
by a significant decrease, which had a slow recovery to pre-event levels. He
speculated that the increase was caused by energetic particles emitted by the Sun,
as the increases occurred at the time of a major solar flare which a few days
later produced a geomagnetic storm at Earth. The high energy protons interact
with atmospheric nuclei, causing a shower of secondary particles which move
downwards. The threshold proton energy needed to produce enough neutrons and
other strongly-interacting particles to reach the ground is 0.6 GeV. A magnetic
storm is recognised as an increase in the horizontal intensity of the Earth’s magnetic
field at the geomagnetic equator followed by a decrease of 50 to 600 nT, which
is the main phase of the storm and lasts anywhere from 2 to 8 h. As we go towards
the geomagnetic equator, the Earth’s magnetic field takes over from atmospheric
absorption regarding the threshold energy, so that at the equator the threshold energy
is closer to 10 GeV. There is an east-west effect due to the fact that the main cosmic
rays are positively charged. We now know that these observations of Forbush were
the first time energetic particles from the Sun had been detected.
The second remarkable discovery was that following the magnetic storm the
galactic cosmic ray intensity took several days to recover to near the pre-event level.
An example from a solar flare on 25 July 1946 is shown in Fig. 1.2. The decrease in
the cosmic ray intensity following the passage of a coronal mass ejection (CME)
which envelops the Earth is called a Forbush Decrease. We now know that the
1.1 Historical Background 3
Fig. 1.2 The increase of solar energetic particles from a solar flare on July 25, 1946 as seen by
a neutron monitor at ground level at Cheltenham, MD. Just over a day later there was a magnetic
commencement, followed after a few hours by a rapid decrease in the high energy cosmic rays
(after Forbush 1946)
plasma cloud which is the CME continues out into the heliosphere taking with it
the embedded magnetic field. As it does so, the magnetic field continues to scatter
incoming cosmic rays which is why the recovery phase is so long.
Chapman and Ferraro (1930) were the first to realise that magnetic storms
were probably caused by a neutral plasma cloud emitted by the Sun hitting the
magnetosphere. If we consider the whole heliosphere, the high energy galactic
cosmic rays are incident from all directions. Particles coming in at the edge of the
heliosphere at, say, 100 AU, will be affected not only by the CMEs which hit the
Earth, but most CMEs emitted by the Sun. This is indeed the case, and it results in
an anticorrelation of the cosmic ray intensity with the sunspot number, which may
be regarded as a proxy for the CME rate. Figure 1.3 illustrates this anticorrelation
for the last five solar cycles. The solar wind carries the solar magnetic field out
through the heliosphere and it is customary to recognize that the 11-year solar
cycle is actually a 22-year cycle, as the polarity of the magnetic field reverses every
11 years. This is recognised in Fig. 1.3 where times when the solar magnetic field
in the northern hemisphere is directed inward are labelled AC and vice-versa. Also
shown in Fig. 1.3 is the tilt angle of the heliospheric current sheet which marks the
4 1 Introduction
Fig. 1.3 (a) The galactic cosmic ray intensity measured by the Kiel neutron monitor. (b) The
monthly sunspot number and tilt angle of the heliospheric current sheet AC and (A) are times
when the solar magnetic field is pointing inward (outward) from the Sun in the northern hemisphere
and outward (inward) in the southern hemisphere (after Heber et al. 2006)
interface between inward and outward magnetic field. The current sheet is tilted to
reflect the offset between the Sun’s rotational and magnetic axes and varies between
a low value during solar minimum to a large angle at solar maximum (Hoeksema
1995).
Since the pioneering measurements by Forbush (1946) the Galactic Cosmic Rays
(GCR) have been studied in great detail. Figure 1.4 shows the differential energy
spectra of protons and other nuclei out to around 10 GeV/nuc (Simpson 1983).
Above 1 GeV/nuc the spectra have the form given by Eq. (1.2):
Here J is the intensity at kinetic energy E and A is a constant. The spectral index is
2.8 above 1 GeV/nuc. and this is true for all elements in so far as the data is available.
The proton spectrum has been measured out to over 1020 eV. This is made possible
through the development of ground-level extensive air shower technology where
the particles reaching ground level, produced by the interaction of highly energetic
protons in the upper atmosphere are analysed to yield the energy of the incoming
particle. The largest detector arrays cover an area 100 km2 .
Before the advent of satellites to carry charged particle detectors into space it
was not known whether the cosmic rays had an energetic electron component. It
was suspected that any energetic electrons present in the Earth’s atmosphere were
probably accelerated in the electric fields of thunderstorms (Wilson 1925). The first
detection of cosmic ray electrons came in 1961 when Earl (1961) and Meyer and
Vogt (1961) detected highly relativistic electrons from independent high altitude
balloon flights. Since then the electron spectrum has also been measured and it
1.1 Historical Background 5
is plotted in Fig. 1.5. The electron intensity above 1 MeV is around 0.5 % of
the protons. The inverse Compton effect and magnetic bremsstrahlung remove any
electrons above 1012 eV.
The spectra have a peak at several 100 MeV/nuc. which reflects the modulation
of the GCR by the plasma emitted from the Sun. Below 10 MeV the spectra start
to increase, which simply reflects the production of energetic particles emitted by
the Sun which are nearly always present at some level at 1 AU.
The early work had a specific goal, which was elementary particle physics.
Before the advent of energetic particle accelerators the highest energy particles
which could be found were in the cosmic rays. Powell et al. (1959) developed a
technique whereby they flew a stack of photographic emulsions to high altitude
where the incoming cosmic ray protons—for the cosmic rays are dominated by
6 1 Introduction
1010
108
106
INTERPLANETARY
104
ELECTRONS
QUIET - TIME
102 OBSERVATIONS
EXCEPT FOR
INTENSITY (ELECTRONS) CM–2 SEC–1 SR–1 keV–1)
100
10–2
10–4
10–6
10–8
10–10
10–12
10–14
10–16
I eV I keV I MeV I GeV I TeV
ENERGY
Fig. 1.5 The quiet-time differential energy spectrum of electrons from solar wind energies to
1 TeV. The dashed line indicates a 1.5 105 K Maxwellian (after Lin 1974)
1.2 The First Energetic Particle Observations Outside the Magnetosphere 7
In the 1950s research into the origin and nature of cosmic rays took place mainly
through very high altitude balloon flights, which typically reached altitudes up
to 40 km. There were also rocket flights, but these were of short duration. The
breakthrough came in 1958 when the first research satellites were launched. One
of the early results was the discovery by Van Allen and colleagues of the Earth’s
radiation belts. The first satellites stayed mainly inside the magnetosphere. It took
a few years to develop the capability to make observations with good energy
resolution in interplanetary space. One of the first instruments to make quantitative
measurements of the radiation they detected was flown on the Explorer-12 satellite,
launched on 16 August, 1961. This carried a detector designed to measure the
intensity and energy spectrum of cosmic ray protons in the range 100–600 MeV
(Bryant et al. 1962). If the incident proton intensity was high enough, the lower
energy cut-off was 2 MeV. Explorer-12 spent over half its time outside the
magnetosphere. On 28 September 1961 a major solar flare occurred and fortunately
the spacecraft was near apogee when the first flare particles arrived. Figure 1.6
shows the intensity of protons of various energies from 28 September to 7 October,
1961. In the intervening half-century after 1961 many more events like this have
been studied. Bryant et al. referred to the “plasma cloud” that was thought to be
responsible for the magnetic sudden commencement (SC in Fig. 1.6). We now refer
to this as a CME. The consensus at the time was that the intense spike seen in the
low energy protons (top panel in Fig. 1.6) represented particles trapped within the
CME. This has become controversial and we will discuss it in more detail later.
Note that the intensity spike seen at low energies appears to be just visible in the
200–300 MeV energy band. This is probably the result of pulse pile-up, as modern
instruments do not detect particles of this energy within the CME.
Bryant et al. were fortunate that Explorer-12 was in interplanetary space, outside
the magnetosphere, when the CME hit. It is interesting that with the first space
observation of a major solar flare/CME they concluded the following:
(1) There were two short increases, 10 min duration, observed several hours
before the flare, which they interpreted as energetic (few hundred keV) elec-
trons. Formally the first actual measurements of solar electrons in space were
made by Van Allen and Krimigis (1965) on Mariner-4 in 1965.
(2) They made measurements within a CME which they supposed had 2–15 MeV
protons trapped inside.
8 1 Introduction
4
10
103
105
104
PROTONS
103 200—300 MEV
102
104
PROTONS > 600 MEV
103
DEEP RIVER
102 NEUTRONS
DECREASE
0
5
7°
3+ FLARE SC
28 29 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
SEPT. OCT.
1961
1.2 The First Energetic Particle Observations Outside the Magnetosphere 9
(3) They pointed out that the 100–600 MeV protons came along field lines probably
connecting back to 55ı west on the solar disc, while the arrival direction of
the bulk of the low energy protons was different. The 100–600 MeV protons
were approximately isotropic, which suggests that they had filled up the inner
heliosphere via back-scattering beyond 1 AU. This concept was the explanation
for the neutron monitor data from the major flare on 23 February 1956 (Meyer,
Parker and Simpson 1956).
(4) They also considered the possibility that flare protons were trapped “in the close
vicinity of the Sun”, i.e. the corona, and later migrated to the west to be released
onto magnetic field lines connected to the Earth.
(5) The CME took 46 h to reach the Earth.
(6) The flare occurred at 29ı east of central meridian on the visible solar disc and
did not produce a ground-level response in neutron monitors, unlike major flares
which were near the solar west limb.
In conclusion, the study of energetic particles in the heliosphere has now been
going on for over 50 years. The instruments used for this work have become
incredibly sophisticated as we show in Chap. 2. Spacecraft have now explored, near
the ecliptic plane, beyond the edge of the heliosphere. All the planets from Mercury
to Saturn have had spacecraft orbiting them. But the only one to explore the third
dimension has been Ulysses, launched in October, 1990, which went, via Jupiter,
into a polar (80ı inclination) orbit around the Sun. The orbit period was 6.2 years
and it finally was turned off at the end of June, 2009.
In the 1940s it was widely believed that space was a vacuum and that the Sun only
emitted a radiation spectrum peaked in the optical region. The ideas of Chapman
and Ferraro and Forbush were not given prominence. The solar wind was unknown
and the cosmic rays were probably protons. Energetic cosmic ray electrons were
first discovered using balloon flights in 1961 while solar electrons, as we have seen,
were identified in 1965. The breakthrough came with Parker’s successful theoretical
prediction of the solar wind (Parker 1958), which is a neutral, fast-moving, low-ˇ 1
plasma stream. The solar wind carried with it a large amount of energy, and because
the velocity was not constant, whenever fast streams overtook slow streams, there
was the potential for energetic particle acceleration.
Data gathered from the many spacecraft that have been operational over the
last half-century have identified the Sun as the main, but not the only, source
of energetic particles. The Sun generates CMEs which often drive interplanetary
shocks. The extent to which these accelerate energetic particles is controversial.
The outer heliosphere is the source of the Anomalous Cosmic Rays (ACR), while
the giant gas planets also play their part. The ultimate goal of this research is to find
1
ˇ D plasma pressure/magnetic pressure.
10 1 Introduction
the acceleration mechanisms which are involved; and how, when and where they
operate. The only stellar system where we can make in situ measurements is our
own, so getting it right is important for understanding what is happening in the rest
of the Galaxy, and beyond.
References
2.1 Introduction
The information we use to develop our ideas primarily comes from a variety of
instruments which have been flown on both spinning and spin-stabilized spacecraft.
It is supplemented with data from ground-based telescopes, generally those which
are viewing the Sun directly and we will not discuss these further. The space-based
instruments are those which measure the kinematic properties of space plasmas
and those which measure individual energetic particles. The plasma instruments are
typically electrostatic analysers which monitor the plasma by stepping a sweeping
voltage from a few volts to tens of kilovolts. Such instruments monitor both elec-
trons and ions. Another important instrument is the magnetometer, which generally
measures the magnitude of the interplanetary magnetic field at the spacecraft in
three mutually orthogonal axes.
One of the most widely used components is the silicon solid-state detector,
which is essentially a p–n junction diode with a high voltage applied in the
reverse direction across it to fully deplete the body of the detector between the
junctions. The detectors are typically circular, with areas of up to around 10 cm2
and thicknesses which range from around 100 m to several mm. There is a dead
layer of oxide, typically 100–200 nm, on the surface which protects the Si surface
from contamination and mechanical damage. A dead layer of 100 nm is sufficient to
stop protons of around 30 keV and therefore this is the effective lower energy cut-off
for these detectors. When a charged particle passes through the detector, electron-
ion pairs are produced and the electrons drift under the action of the applied voltage
across the detector to be detected as a short electrical pulse. To a good approximation
the amplitude of the pulse is proportional to the energy lost by the charged particle.
If electrons are to be detected, at low energies scattering is important and must be
corrected for if quantitative inferences are to be made from the data.
4 4
ENERGY LOSS IN K1 (MeV)
10 10
ENERGY LOSS IN K1 (MeV)
3 3
10 10
TRAJECTORY−CORRECTED
ULYSSES
COSPIN HET
UNIVERSITY
1990: 296−365 OF CHICAGO
2 1991: 1−41, 49−55
10 2
10
2 3 4 2 3 4
10 10 10 10 10 10
ENERGY LOSS IN K2−K6 (MeV)
Fig. 2.1 One of the solid-state detector multi-head telescopes flown on the Ulysses mission. There
are five solid-state detectors shown, labelled B, C, D, F and M (see text) (after Lanzerotti et al.
1992)
2.1 Introduction 13
Fig. 2.2 The High Energy Telescope of the COSPIN instrument (see text) (after Simpson et al.
1992)
This type of detector is ideal for measuring the elemental and isotopic composi-
tion of solar particle events. Figure 2.3 shows a matrix plot of dE versus (E dE) for
a typical event. A dot represents the energy parameters from a single particle. The
left panel (A) shows the matrix uncorrected for the trajectory, and the right panel (B)
shows the same data following correction. The advantage of the track identification
is readily apparent. The curves correspond to specific nuclei, in this instance from C
to Fe. Detectors have been flown which can identify individual isotopes, especially
for the light elements and also go up to masses in excess of 200 atomic mass units
(amu).
A technique that we have not discussed yet is that of using the particle velocity
as an additional parameter to be monitored. In practice there are two possibilities.
The first is to use an element such as a Cerenkov detector to select only relativistic
particles. This is especially useful for measuring electrons above a few MeV in the
presence of a high background of other particles. A Cerenkov detector produces a
light signal if the velocity of the particle exceeds the velocity of light in the detector
medium. If glass is used, with a refractive index, n, of 1.5, then the Cerenkov
threshold is a velocity of c/n D 0.67c, where c is the velocity of light. However,
pressurised gas may be used as the Cerenkov medium. Thus if the refractive index
of the gas is, say, 1.005, then the Cerenkov threshold is 0.995c. This is the velocity
of a 5 MeV electron.
There is a disadvantage in employing a gas detector in a spacecraft, as over a
long mission such as Ulysses the gas might leak out. This was overcome in the Kiel
2.1 Introduction 15
Foil F M
LEFS150 LEMS30
Magnet
53° look angle 51° look angle
B
D
C
CA60
0 5
45° look angle
cm
Fig. 2.3 An example of a solar particle event from the HET (see Fig. 2.2). Plotted is the energy
loss in the thin position-sensitive detectors (dE) versus the residual energy lost by the ion as it
stops in the thick detector stack (E dE). The left panel (a) shows the raw data and the right panel
(b) the data after the trajectory correction has been made (after Simpson et al. 1992)
Electron Telescope (KET) which is part of the COSPIN instrument suite (Simpson
et al. 1992). A schematic view of the KET is shown in Fig. 2.4. The detector element
C1 is a solid block of silica aerogel, which has a refractive index of 1.066. The light
signal from C1 is viewed by a photomultiplier tube PM1 through a hole in the guard
counter A. In flight the KET measures electrons from a few MeV to several GeV.
The second way of exploiting velocity is to measure the time-of-flight of
the particle between two detecting elements and for instruments which can be
accommodated on a typical spacecraft this is most useful for detecting particles
of relatively low velocity. One such instrument is the Ultra Low Energy Isotope
Spectrometer (ULEIS) which is currently flying on the ACE spacecraft. Figure 2.5
shows a schematic view of ULEIS. This is designed to study elements from He to
Ni with energies between around 45 keV/nuc to a few MeV/nuc.
In this instrument the measurement technique is as follows. The incident ion
passes through thin foils and in so doing emits secondary electrons which are
accelerated to around 1 keV and deflected onto microchannel plates by electrostatic
mirrors. There are two sets of microchannel plates which provide (redundant) start
pulses for the time-of-flight measurement, and a single set of microchannel plates
16 2 Instrumentation
44˚
A
D1 S1
PM 1
PM 4
C1
D2
C2 S2
D1 Semiconductor
DB 1mm/ 750mm2
PM 2
C1 Silica Aerogel
n = 1.066; d = 0.26g/cm3
D2 Semiconductor
1mm / 500 mm2
C2 Lead Fluoride (Pb F2)
2.5r.L.; d = 7.7g /cm3; n = 1.885
PM 3 S1 Fast Scintillator (Plastic)
SPFφ 40mm. 1 mm thick
A.S2 Fast Scintillator (Plastic)
NE 104
1cm DB Diffusion box for C2
Fig. 2.4 A schematic view of the relativistic electron detector on Ulysses (after Simpson et al.
1992)
to provide the stop pulse. The electron-emitting foils are represented by horizontal
lines in Fig. 2.5. The residual energy of the ion is measured by a stack of seven
solid state detectors at the back of the instrument. As the total energy of the ion is
measured as well as its velocity, it is then straightforward to determine the mass.
Thus ULEIS works very well as a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. However, as
pointed out by Mason et al. (1998) it is unable to distinguish between isomers.
The most ambitious mission ever flown is that of the Voyagers. The two Voyager
spacecraft were launched in 1977 and they used gravity assist from the outer
planets to enable them to reached the interstellar medium (see Chap. 9). Figure
2.6 is a schematic view of the cosmic ray instrument package. This has a high
energy telescope (HET), a low energy telescope (LET) and an electron telescope
(TET). The HET measures the differential energy spectrum of electrons and ions
from hydrogen to iron over a broad range of energies. For protons this is from 4–
500 MeV and for iron it is 2.5–500 MeV/nuc. For electrons the energy spectrum is
measured from 3–10 MeV. There are two complete HET telescopes with almost
orthogonal viewing directions. The LET measures hydrogen and helium nuclei
from 3–8.4 MeV/nuc and elements from atomic number 3–26 over an energy range
2.1 Introduction 17
Sunshade
Sliding Iris
(partly Open)
Entrance harp
Thin
Foil Accelerating
Harp
Position-sensing
Anode
Start #1
Start #2 Typical Secondary
Electron Path
0 5 10
Scale (cm)
Stop MCPs
Electrostatic
Position-sensing Mirror
Anode
Solid State
Detector Array
Fig. 2.5 A schematic view of ULEIS (see text) (after Mason et al. 1998)
6–20 MeV/nuc. The electron energy spectrometer (TET) measures the electron
spectrum from 5–110 MeV. The detectors are all silicon solid state. A complete
description of the instrument may be found in Stone et al. (1977). The detectors
need to function flawlessly for four decades if the mission is to achieve its objectives
18 2 Instrumentation
Fig. 2.6 A schematic view of the cosmic ray instrument package on the two Voyager spacecraft
(after Stone et al. 1977)
and give us information about the local interstellar medium. Voyager-1 has now
made it out of the heliosphere (see Chap. 9) and data from these instruments are still
coming in.
With these examples we have illustrated how charged particle detectors are able
to measure the energy spectrum, elemental and isotopic composition of the particle
environment in the interplanetary medium. Instruments using similar detectors may
also measure electrons from solar wind energies up to the relativistic regime. If the
instruments are on a spinning spacecraft then by dividing the data into sectors of
the spin, it is possible to determine the anisotropy of the particles also. On a 3-axis
stabilised spacecraft anisotropy measurements may be achieved by having multiple
detectors looking in different directions. Variations on the designs discussed above
can provide data up to several hundred MeV/nuc.
The detectors on Ulysses are all relatively light and do not consume much
power. Thus the instrument designers have to be ingenious in order to maximise
the return for the weight and power they have been allocated. More recently it
has been possible to have much heavier instruments which are able to measure the
energetic particles out to hundreds of GeV. Figure 2.7 is a schematic view of the
PAMELA instrument (Picozza et al. 2007) which was launched on 15 June, 2006
on the Russian Resurs DK1 satellite into an elliptical Earth orbit with an inclination
of 70ı . PAMELA is designed to study charged particles out to 500 GeV using
time-of-flight techniques and a calorimeter for measuring the total energy of the
particle. It has a mass of 470 kg and has an average power consumption of 355 W.
The primary goal of the instrument is to measure antimatter in the cosmic rays and
to this end a magnetic spectrometer with a magnetic field of 0.43 T is a crucial part
of the payload. PAMELA observed particles responsible for the ground level event
on 13 December 2006, up to 3 GeV=nuc.
2.1 Introduction 19
Fig. 2.7 A schematic view of the PAMELA instrument (Picozza et al. 2007)
What can be done from the ground? Below a few hundred MeV the atmosphere
absorbs most of the secondary particles resulting from interactions of the incident
particle. The neutron monitor (Simpson et al. 1953 and Chap. 1) responds to nuclei,
which are mainly protons, incident at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere with kinetic
energies above around 1 GeV as well as heavier nuclei of similar velocities. The
incident proton undergoes a nuclear interaction with an air nucleus, following which
an air shower of particles is produced, some of which reach the ground. Of the
shower particles, those which are strongly-interacting produce a multiplicity of
secondary neutrons in the neutron monitor. These are then detected by proportional
counters loaded with 10 BF3 gas, which absorbs neutrons to produce 11 B, which
decays to 7 Li and an ˛-particle. There is a network of neutron monitors around
the Earth, which acts as a magnetic spectrometer, so that the energy spectrum and
anisotropy of high energy solar particle events may be measured. Such events occur
above the neutron monitor threshold somewhat more than once a year.
Incident energetic particles interact in the Earth’s atmosphere and generate a
shower of electrons, muons and -rays. If all the particles reaching the ground could
be detected it would be passible to calculate the energy of the incident particle
responsible for the shower. This would be impractical, but the next best thing is
to sample the shower over a wide area and extrapolate back to the top of the
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