Search NASA⌕ Search

SEARCH · Search NASA

Results for “Neutron Counting”

Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.

146 records · Page 9

Heavy Ion Acceleration in 3he-Rich Solar Energetic Particle Events: New Insights From Solar Orbiter

We present Solar Orbiter energetic particle observations of two 3 He-rich events with features more clearly observed than in prior studies. The event of 2022 November 9 observed from 0.59 au contained hundreds of ultra-heavy ions (UH, mass >78 amu) whereas previous observations at 1 au have shown only an occasional count or two. The event of 2023 April 8 observed from 0.29 au fortuitously had very low ambient activity, making it possible to observe spectra from the 3 He acceleration mechanism without contamination, revealing extremely low H and 4 He intensities arriving simultaneously with other ions observed in typical 3 He-rich events. Taken together with previous studies we believe these data show that 3 He-rich events have a single acceleration mechanism that is responsible for the unique abundance features of 3 He, heavy ions, and UH ions. Considering the acceleration model of Roth and Temerin (1997) that heats the ions over a broad range of gyrofrequencies away from those damped by H and 4 He, we calculate reasonable fits to the observed abundances O-Fe. A key result is that high values of, e.g., Fe/O typical of such events is not due to preferential Fe heating, but on the contrary is due mainly to the depletion of O which at elevated temperatures has a charge-to-mass ratio in the region of the waves damped by 4He. The model also naturally incorporates features of high ionization states and neutron-rich isotope enhancements that have been long-standing puzzles in observations of this type of flare.

Solar flares↗

High-Energy X-Ray Imaging of the Pulsar Wind Nebula MSH 15-52: Constraints on Particle Acceleration and Transport

We present the first images of the pulsar wind nebula (PWN) MSH 15−52 in the hard X-ray band (8 keV), as measured with the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR). Overall, the morphology of the PWN as measured by NuSTAR in the 3-7 keV band is similar to that seen in Chandra high-resolution imaging. However, the spatial extent decreases with energy, which we attribute to synchrotron energy losses as the particles move away from the shock. The hard-band maps show a relative deficit of counts in the northern region toward the RCW 89 thermal remnant, with significant asymmetry. We find that the integrated PWN spectra measured with NuSTAR and Chandra suggest that there is a spectral break at 6 keV, which may be explained by a break in the synchrotron emitting electron distribution at approximately 200 TeV and/or imperfect cross calibration. We also measure spatially resolved spectra, showing that the spectrum of the PWN softens away from the central pulsar B1509−58, and that there exists a roughly sinusoidal variation of spectral hardness in the azimuthal direction. We discuss the results using particle flow models. We find non-monotonic structure in the variation with distance of spectral hardness within 50 of the pulsar moving in the jet direction, which may imply particle and magnetic-field compression by magnetic hoop stress as previously suggested for this source. We also present two-dimensional maps of spectral parameters and find an interesting shell-like structure in the N(sub H) map. We discuss possible origins of the shell-like structure and their implications.

individual objects: G320.4-1.2↗