New estimation of non-thermal electron energetics in the giant solar flare on 28 October 2003 based on Mars Odyssey observations

TL;DR

This study provides new estimates of the total energy and number of non-thermal electrons in the 2003 October 28 giant solar flare, using Mars Odyssey HEND data, revealing a wider range of energetics than previous RHESSI-based estimates.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive analysis of the flare's non-thermal electron energetics using Mars Odyssey data, covering the entire flare duration and applying two different models.

Findings

Estimated non-thermal electron energy ranges from 2.3×10^32 to 6.2×10^33 ergs.

Non-thermal electrons in the impulsive phase contain about 40% of total non-thermal energy.

Electron population in the flare exceeds interplanetary electron populations by orders of magnitude.

Abstract

A new estimation of the total number and energy of the non-thermal electrons produced in the giant ($>\text{X}17$) solar flare on 2003 October 28 is presented based on the analysis of the observations of the hard X-ray (HXR) emission by the High Energy Neutron Detector (HEND) onboard the Mars Odyssey spacecraft orbiting Mars. Previous estimations of the non-thermal electron energy based on the Reuven Ramaty High-Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) data were incomplete since RHESSI missed the peak of the flare impulsive phase. In contrast, HEND observed the whole flare. We used two models to estimate the energy of the non-thermal electrons: the cold thick target model and the warm thick target model. We found that, depending on the model used and the low-energy cutoff ($E_\mathrm{c}$) of the non-thermal electrons, the estimate of their total energy in the entire flare can vary from $2.3 \times 10^{32}$ to $6.2 \times 10^{33}$ ergs. The lowest estimate, $2.3 \times 10^{32}$ ergs, obtained within the cold thick target model and fixed $E_\mathrm{c}=43$ keV, is consistent with the previous estimate. In this case, non-thermal electrons accelerated in the peak of the flare impulsive phase missed by RHESSI contained approximately $40\%$ of the total energy of non-thermal electrons of the entire flare. The highest value, $6.2 \times 10^{33}$ ergs, obtained with the cold thick target model and fixed $E_\mathrm{c}=10$ keV, looks abnormally high, since it exceeds the total non-potential magnetic energy of the parent active region and the total bolometric energy radiated in the flare. Our estimates also show that the total number and energetics of the HXR-producing electrons in the flare region is a few orders of magnitude higher than of the population of energetic electrons injected into interplanetary space.