HR: 09:45h
AN: SH51D-07 INVITED     [Abstracts]
TI: A Comparison Between Particle Acceleration Processes during Explosive Solar Events and in the Earth's Magnetosphere
AU: * Desai, M I
EM: mdesai@swri.edu
AF: Southwest Research Institute, 6220 Culebra Road, San Antonio, TX 78238, United States
AU: Burgess, D A
EM: d.burgess@qmul.ac.uk
AF: Queen Mary, University of London, 327 Mile End Road, London, E1 4NS, United Kingdom
AB: Despite being a fundamental and universal phenomenon, the acceleration of charged particles in heliophysical plasmas has remained poorly understood. The International Heliophysical project provides a unique opportunity to compare and contrast between observations and theoretical models of particle acceleration in the solar corona, the interplanetary medium, and in geospace. Near the Sun, charged particles are sometimes accelerated to relativistic energies when the coronal magnetic field reorganizes itself during massive explosions known as solar flare and coronal mass ejection (CMEs) events. In addition, if the CMEs are fast enough they drive shock waves as they propagate through the solar corona and the interplanetary medium and can accelerate particles to relativistic energies. The Earth's magnetosphere system is characterized by regions dominated by the terrestrial dipolar field, magnetospheric activity driven by the solar wind, and the bow shock standing in the solar wind. Detailed observations have been amassed of energetic particles at the bow shock, in the radiation belts, and the magnetotail, which allow the effects of geometry, length scales and solar wind driving to be investigated. In this paper, we discuss the similarities and highlight the main differences between the causes and consequences of the various physical processes responsible for accelerating particles near the Sun, in interplanetary space, and in and around the Earth's magnetosphere.
DE: 2101 Coronal mass ejections (7513)
DE: 2114 Energetic particles (7514)
DE: 2139 Interplanetary shocks
DE: 2154 Planetary bow shocks
DE: 2723 Magnetic reconnection (7526, 7835)
SC: SPA-Solar and Heliospheric Physics [SH]
MN: 2007 Joint Assembly