Heavy-ion Acceleration in 3He-rich Solar Energetic Particle Events: New Insights from Solar Orbiter

Abstract

Abstract We present Solar Orbiter energetic particle observations of two 3He-rich events with features more clearly observed than in prior studies. The event of 2022 November 9 observed from 0.59 au contained hundreds of ultraheavy (UH; mass >78 amu) ions whereas previous observations at 1 au have shown only an occasional count or two. The event of 2023 April 8 observed from 0.29 au fortuitously had very low ambient activity, making it possible to observe spectra from the 3He acceleration mechanism without contamination, revealing extremely low H and 4He intensities arriving simultaneously with other ions observed in typical 3He-rich events. Taken together with previous studies, we believe these data show that 3He-rich events have a single acceleration mechanism that is responsible for the unique abundance features of 3He, heavy ions, and UH ions. Considering the acceleration model of Roth & Temerin that heats the ions over a broad range of gyrofrequencies away from those damped by H and 4He, we calculate reasonable fits to the observed abundances O–Fe. A key result is that high values of, e.g., Fe/O typical of such events is not due to preferential Fe heating, but on the contrary is due mainly to the depletion of O, which at elevated temperatures has a charge-to-mass ratio in the region of the waves damped by 4He. The model also naturally incorporates features of high-ionization states and neutron-rich isotope enhancements that have been long-standing puzzles in observations of this type of flare.