Solar Energetic Particle Transport in the Heliosphere

Abstract

The transport of solar energetic particles (SEPs) in the inner heliosphere is a very important issue which can affect our daily life. For example, large SEP events can lead to the failure of power grids, interrupt communications, and may participate in global climate change. The SEPS also can harm humans in space and destroy the instruments on board spacecraft. Studying the transport of SEPs also helps us understand remote regions of space which are not visible to us because there are not enough photons in those places.The interplanetary magnetic field is the medium in which solar energetic particles travel. The Parker Model of the solar wind and its successor, the Weber and Davis model, have been the dominant models of the solar wind and the interplanetary magnetic field since 1960s. In this thesis, I have reviewed these models and applied an important correction to the Weber and Davis model. Various solar wind models and their limitations are presented. Different models can affect the calculation of magnetic field direction at 1~AU by as much as about 30\%.Analysis of the onset of SEP events could be used to infer the release time of solar energetic particles and to differentiate between models of particle acceleration near the Sun. It is demonstrated that because of the nature of the stochastic heliospheric magnetic field, the path length measured along the lineof force can be shorter than that of the nominal Parker spiral. These results help to explain recent observations.A two dimensional model and a fully three dimensional numerical model for the transport of SEPs has been developed based on Parker's transport equation for the first time. ``Reservoir'' phenomenon, which means the inner heliosphere works like a reservoir for SEPs during large SEP events, and multi-spacecraft observation of peak intensities are explained by this numerical model.