Suzaku Detection of Solar Wind Charge Exchange Emission from a Variety of Highly-ionized Ions in an Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejection

TL;DR

This study used Suzaku data to detect and analyze solar wind charge exchange emissions from highly-ionized ions during an interplanetary coronal mass ejection, revealing a spectrally-rich event with new sulfur detection.

Contribution

First detection of sulfur XVI line in SWCX emission and demonstration that ICME-driven SWCX can probe highly-ionized ion populations in plasma.

Findings

Detected multiple highly-ionized ions consistent with past ICME SWCX events.

First observation of sulfur XVI line in SWCX emission.

Identified the event as ICME-driven based on spectral analysis.

Abstract

X-ray emission generated through solar-wind charge exchange (SWCX) is known to contaminate X-ray observation data, the amount of which is often significant or even dominant, particularly in the soft X-ray band, when the main target is comparatively weak diffuse sources, depending on the space weather during the observation. In particular, SWCX events caused by interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) tend to be spectrally rich and to provide critical information about the metal abundance in the ICME plasma. We analyzed the SN1006 background data observed with Suzaku on 2005 September 11 shortly after an X6-class solar flare, signatures of which were separately detected together with an associated ICME. We found that the data include emission lines from a variety of highly ionized ions generated through SWCX. The relative abundances of the detected ions were found to be consistent with those in past ICME-driven SWCX events. Thus, we conclude that this event was ICME-driven. In addition, we detected a sulfur XVI line for the first time as one from the SWCX emission, the fact of which suggests that it is the most spectrally-rich SWCX event ever observed. We suggest that observations of ICME-driven SWCX events can provide a unique probe to study the population of highly-ionized ions in the plasma, which is difficult to measure in currently-available in-situ observations.