Complete Heavy Ion Charge State Distributions of Solar Wind Heavy Ions Associated With ICMEs
Abstract
The complete charge state distributions of certain heavy ions observed in interplanetary coronal mass ejections have been measured, from singly charged to fully ionized. To find all charge states, a novel analysis technique is used, which requires the combination and cross-calibration of two different data sets from ACE-SWICS. The first contains ions of higher charge states, and includes an identification of their mass, mass-per-charge, and energy-per-charge. The second data set contains singly and low-charge ions, and identifies only their mass-per-charge and energy-per-charge. Focusing on C, O, and Fe, we find ionic charge states representative of temperatures from ≈60,000 K to over 5,000,000 K contained within interplanetary coronal mass ejections observed near 1 AU. We interpret these data in the context of near-Sun observations of filament material associated with coronal mass ejections. We find that singly charged ions are embedded within selected interplanetary coronal mass ejections, and we examine their densities and durations. These data thus provide the most unambiguous in situ diagnostic of solar prominence plasma in the heliosphere.
- Publication:
-
Solar Heliospheric and INterplanetary Environment (SHINE 2012)
- Pub Date:
- June 2012
- Bibcode:
- 2012shin.confE..78G