Shock versus stochastic acceleration of impulsive solar flare protons |
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| Authors: | Dean F Smith Stephen H Brecht |
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| Institution: | (1) Berkeley Research Associates, and Department of Astrophysical, Planetary, and Atmospheric Sciences, University of Colorado, 80309 Boulder, CO, U.S.A.;(2) Berkeley Research Associates, P.O. Box 241, 94701 Berkeley, CA, U.S.A. |
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| Abstract: | The two major candidates for proton acceleration in impulsive  -ray producing flares, shock and stochastic acceleration, are considered in light of recent observations of mass motions and turbulence in flares. Starting with the basic problem of energies required, energy storage and the currents which must be involved, it is concluded that the primary energy release must occur close to the temperature minimum region. It is shown that energy can propagate upwards in the form of fast magnetosonic waves which become evanescent in the transition region, converting a large fraction of their energy to mass motions and turbulence. Present observations are mostly of rather coarse (7000 km) spatial resolution and it is quite possible that significantly higher velocities than those observed were present. Using the results of recent simulations of parallel shocks and the well tested theory of Lee (1983) for parallel shock acceleration in the interplanetary medium, it is shown that shock acceleration is a viable candidate at velocities slightly higher than present observations. It is also shown that shocks must be driven by a mass of material which would be visible in coronal lines such as Caxix for them to be energetically important in proton acceleration.Stochastic acceleration is examined using the hypothesis that there is an equipartition of energy between observed turbulence and magnetic field fluctuations. It is shown that this is a viable acceleration mechanism within a large range of presently observed turbulence provided that the above equipartition hypothesis is valid and the turbulent elements are of small scale (1–200 km). Since turbulence is observed in many flares without any evidence of -rays, one of the above conditions must not be satisfied in general. It is concluded that although present observations favor stochastic acceleration, no definitive conclusion can be made without higher spatial resolution observations and additional theoretical work. |
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