Anomalous Ion Charge State Behavior In Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections

A recent analysis of solar wind charge state composition measurements from the ACE/SWICS instrument showed that the expected correlation between the frozen-in values of the O7/O6 and C6/C5 ratios was violated in ~5% of the slow solar wind in the 1998-2011 period (Zhao et al. 2015). In this work we determine that such anomalous behavior is also found in over 40% of Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections (ICMEs), as identified by Richardson and Cane (2010). An analysis of the plasma composition during these events reveals significant depletions in densities of fully stripped ions of Carbon, Oxygen, and Nitrogen. We argue that these events are indicators of ICME plasma acceleration via magnetic reconnection near the freeze-in region of Carbon and Oxygen above the solar corona.