Energetic particle cross-field propagation early in a solar event

TL;DR

This study uses simulations to show that early in a solar energetic particle event, particles spread across magnetic field lines mainly by following meandering field lines rather than diffusion, challenging traditional models.

Contribution

It demonstrates that particle propagation along meandering magnetic field lines dominates early SEP spread, highlighting the need to incorporate this process in models.

Findings

Propagation along meandering field lines is key at 1 AU early in events.

Diffusion models underestimate particle spread in the first hour.

Particle diffusion from initial field lines is negligible during first 5 hours.

Abstract

Solar energetic particles (SEPs) have been observed to easily spread across heliographic longitudes, and the mechanisms responsible for this behaviour remain unclear. We use full-orbit simulations of a 10 MeV proton beam in a turbulent magnetic field to study to what extent the spread across the mean field can be described as diffusion early in a particle event. We compare the full-orbit code results to solutions of a Fokker-Planck equation including spatial and pitch angle diffusion, and of one including also propagation of the particles along random-walking magnetic field lines. We find that propagation of the particles along meandering field lines is the key process determining their cross-field spread at 1 AU at the beginning of the simulated event. The mean square displacement of the particles an hour after injection is an order of magnitude larger than that given by the diffusion model, indicating that models employing spatial cross-field diffusion cannot be used to describe early evolution of an SEP event. On the other hand, the diffusion of the particles from their initial field lines is negligible during the first 5 hours, which is consistent with the observations of SEP intensity dropouts. We conclude that modelling SEP events must take into account the particle propagation along meandering field lines for the first 20 hours of the event.