Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons^™

Evidence For A Suprathermal Seed Population Of Heavy Ions Accelerated By Interplanetary Shocks Near 1 Au, Mihir I. Desai, Glenn M. Mason, Joseph R. Dwyer, Joseph E. Mazur, Robert E. Gold, Stamatios M. Krimigis, Charles W. Smith, Ruth M. Skoug

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

We have surveyed the 0.1-10 MeV nucleonˉ¹ elemental abundances at 72 interplanetary (IP) shocks observed by the Ultra-Low-Energy Isotope Spectrometer on board the Advanced Composition Explorer from 1997 October through 2002 September. We find the following: (1) The C/O ratios in IP shocks were substantially depleted (by more than ∼40%) relative to solar wind values. (2) The IP shock abundances were poorly correlated with those measured in the slow and fast solar wind. (3) Energetic ions above ∼0.1 MeV nucleonˉ¹ from impulsive and gradual solar energetic particle events (SEPs) were present upstream of all the IP shocks in our survey. …