HR: 16:00h
AN: SH44C-01    [Abstracts]
TI: Investigation of Ion Acceleration in Small RHESSI Flares
AU: * Shih, A Y
EM: ayshih@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
AU: * Shih, A Y
EM: ayshih@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
AU: Hudson, H S
EM: hhudson@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
AU: Smith, D M
EM: dsmith@scipp.ucsc.edu
AF: Department of Physics and Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA 95064, United States
AU: Lin, R P
EM: rlin@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: Department of Physics, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
AU: Lin, R P
EM: rlin@ssl.berkeley.edu
AF: Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, United States
AB: Solar flares accelerate both ions and electrons, and the energy content in accelerated ions may be comparable to that in accelerated electrons. The signature of ion acceleration is the emission of gamma-ray lines that result from nuclear interactions in the ambient solar atmosphere, and the gamma-ray line most easily observed by the high-resolution detectors on the Reuven Ramaty High-Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager ( RHESSI) is the 2.223~MeV neutron-capture line. Unfortunately, gamma-ray lines are often too weak to observe in all but the largest flares, but it is of interest to be able to put constraints on ion acceleration in the more frequently occurring smaller flares. We combine the spectra of many small flares to obtain limits on the average neutron-capture line flux for small flares and discuss the implications of these limits relative to previous studies of larger flares. The work at the University of California, Berkeley, was supported by NASA contract NAS 5-98033.
DE: 7514 Energetic particles (2114)
DE: 7519 Flares
DE: 7529 Photosphere
DE: 7554 X-rays, gamma rays, and neutrinos
SC: SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting