Prospects of Detecting Non-thermal Protons in Solar Flares via Lyman Line Spectroscopy: Revisiting the Orrall-Zirker Effect

TL;DR

This paper revisits the Orrall-Zirker effect to assess the potential of detecting non-thermal protons in solar flares through Lyman line spectroscopy, using modern models and simulations to refine predictions.

Contribution

It provides updated, more transient predictions of the Orrall-Zirker effect's strength, demonstrating the feasibility of detecting non-thermal protons with current instrumentation.

Findings

Predictions of the effect are weaker and more transient than previous estimates.

Detection of non-thermal protons is possible with the SPICE instrument under favorable conditions.

The study uses self-consistent models of non-equilibrium ionization and proton distributions.

Abstract

Solar flares are efficient particle accelerators, with a substantial fraction of the energy released manifesting as non-thermal particles. While the role that non-thermal electrons play in transporting flare energy is well studied, the properties and importance of non-thermal protons is rather less well understood. This is in large part due to the paucity of diagnostics, particularly at the lower-energy (deka-keV) range of non-thermal proton distributions in flares. One means to identify the presence of deka-keV protons is by an effect originally described by \cite{1976ApJ...208..618O}. In the Orrall-Zirker effect, non-thermal protons interact with ambient neutral hydrogen, and via charge exchange produce a population of energetic neutral atoms (ENAs) in the chromosphere. These ENAs subsequently produce an extremely redshifted photon in the red wings of hydrogen spectral lines. We revisit predictions of the strength of this effect using modern interaction cross-sections, and numerical models capable of self-consistently simulating the flaring non-equilibrium ionization stratification, and the non-thermal proton distribution (and, crucially, their feedback on each other). We synthesize both the thermal and non-thermal emission from \lya\ and \lyb, the most promising lines that may exhibit a detectable signal. These new predictions are are weaker and more transient than prior estimates, but the effects should be detectable in fortuitous circumstances. We degrade the \lyb\ emission to the resolution of the Spectral Imaging of the Coronal Environment (SPICE) instrument on board Solar Orbiter, demonstrating that though likely difficult, it should be possible to detect the presence of non-thermal protons in flares observed by SPICE.