Event Details

Solar Energetic Particles and Space Weather

Abstract: Solar Energetic Particles (SEPs) are ions and electrons accelerated during flares and coronal mass ejections at the Sun. They can escape from the corona into interplanetary space and may reach near-Earth locations, where they pose a significant radiation risk to humans in space and satellite hardware. This talk will review our understanding of the origin and transport of SEPs, based on a large body of data gathered by spacecraft detectors and on theoretical models. It will focus on recent work on test particle simulations of the propagation of relativistic solar protons, which produce important space weather effects. The results show that accurate modelling of SEP propagation requires a 3D approach, due to guiding centre drifts and the influence of the heliospheric current sheet.