Charged particles from the sun coming towards earth engage with the geocorona, a broad cloud of hydrogen atoms extending into area from the Earth. Charge is transferred to the hydrogen atoms, and soft X-rays are released. Credit: Tokyo Metropolitan University
Designs record how solar wind charge exchange events are observed.
Scientists from Tokyo Metropolitan University have actually utilized mathematical approaches to design the variations observed in soft X-ray signals spotted by X-ray satellites. They evaluated data from the Suzaku telescope and compared it with modeling of solar winds engaging with the most upper parts of our atmosphere. They was successful in catching how the signal varied with the orbital movement of the satellite, with ramifications for how predictions can be made for future satellite experiments.
It was proposed that these were due to solar wind, fluxes of charged particles showing up from the sun, and how they interact with neutral ions in the upper extremities of our environment, or the geocorona. More comprehensive observations in the 2000s verified the obvious spectra of these occasions, known as solar wind charge exchange occasions (SWCX), and the system itself was extensively accepted.
Variations in proton flux and photons over an exchange occasion determined by Suzaku. The design (red) is found to carefully replicate the variations seen in the experiment. Credit: Tokyo Metropolitan University
Modeling how solar wind offers rise to the measurements taken by orbital telescopes proved much more difficult. It requires effectively recording the arrival of solar wind occasions, how the charged particles engage with neutral atoms, and how that impacts the magnetosphere, not to mention how these phenomena combine to trigger the variation in signal observed in time and area by the satellites.
Charged particles from the sun coming towards earth connect with the geocorona, a wide cloud of hydrogen atoms extending into space from the Earth. Charge is moved to the hydrogen atoms, and soft X-rays are released. It was proposed that these were due to solar wind, fluxes of charged particles showing up from the sun, and how they connect with neutral ions in the upper extremities of our atmosphere, or the geocorona. More comprehensive observations in the 2000s verified the obvious spectra of these events, known as solar wind charge exchange occasions (SWCX), and the system itself was commonly accepted.
Now, a group led by Associate Professor Yuichiro Ezoe of Tokyo Metropolitan University have actually successfully brought these aspects together to realize a design that can successfully replicate how the signal differs over time. The teams focus was on data from Suzaku, an X-ray telescope satellite introduced in 2005 by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency. In contrast to other satellites, Suzaku lies in a lower orbit, allowing it to observe the polar cusps of the magnetosphere, where solar winds are being highly bent away. A highlight of the groups work is not just the large variety of astrophysical events they have the ability to unite, but how it might be mapped onto real data.
The model showed excellent correspondence with experimental information, replicating the signal observed as much as a factor of 2, an excellent feat in the field. They were able to replicate the especially strong variations in the signal when the line of sight of the satellite aligned with the polar cusps. There were some noteworthy exceptions, like when a major geomagnetic storm was observed; nevertheless, effective recreation of the variations holds substantial promise for predicting the results of the next generation of X-ray observations in space.
Referral: “Modeling of geocoronal solar wind charge exchange events discovered with Suzaku” by Daiki Ishi, Kumi Ishikawa, Yoshizumi Miyoshi, Naoki Terada and Yuichiro Ezoe, 12 December 2022, Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan.DOI: 10.1093/ pasj/psac095.
This work was supported by Japan Society for the Promotion of Science KAKENHI Grant Numbers 19J20910 and 21H04972.