The Coronal Site of a Type III Burst as a Source of Interplanetary Electrons

Although cosmic rays detected in interplanetary space have often been correlated with visible flares at the Sun, little is known about the transport of these particles through the corona. Lin demonstrated a good correlation between ≳20 keV electron events detected by spacecraft near the Earth and type III radio bursts at the Sun. In a detailed investigation of many of these electron events from one particular active region source, Lin proposed that the injection of electrons was characterized by a source region in the corona which extended over 70° in longitude, such that in this region the electrons had direct access to an ‘open cone’ of propagation in interplanetary space. When the spacecraft was situated outside this open cone (by up to 15°), impulsive electron events were still recorded, but these were now modified by diffusion through the corona of the electrons from the 70° source region.