ISWAT H3: Particle Radiation Environment in the Heliosphere: Updates and Next Steps

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Action Teams (New team added soon)

• H3-01: SEP Validation (Team lead: Kathryn Whitman, NASA/SRAG)
• H3-02: Understanding the Suprathermal Seed Population (Team Lead: Maher Dayeh, SWRI)
• H3-04: CLEAR: All-Clear SEP Predictions (Lead: Lulu Zhao, UM)
• H3-05: Modulation of GCRs by magnetic field structures in the heliosphere and their temporal variations (Lead: Igor Sokolov & Weihao Liu, UM)

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H3-01 SEP Validation

• Demonstrated the SPHINX validation infrastructure and VIVID validation visualization web tool developed through H3-01 activities
• Finalized results from the SEPVAL 2023 community challenge were presented for >10 MeV and >100 MeV predictions
• 20 SEP models participated in the challenge from 2023 to present
• Focused on validation results for All Clear, probability, and maximum flux
• Discussed how to use these results to define the state-of-the-art of the SEP forecasting field
• Presented preliminary validation results from the real time SEP Scoreboards (8 million forecasts over 4.8 years)
• Discussed how the outcomes differ in a challenge scenario versus real time forecasting
• Discussed how the degree of imbalance in the data sets affect skill scores

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SEPVAL Google drive: https://tinyurl.com/4529rvya

Go to Results > ISWAT2025

Please do not publish yet! Will archive on Zenodo soon.

VIVID Visualization Tool

Validation in Visually Interactive Displays (VIVID)

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VIVID Goal: Web application for displaying the validation results of SPHINX in a dashboard of interactive plots and tables

Developer: Phil Quinn (NASA JSC SRAG)

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On the web if you can access NASA VPN:

https://web-dev.ccmc.smce.nasa.gov:8001/vivid/

H3-01 & H3-02 joint session

• Maher Dayeh demonstrated a web tool hosted at CCMC that provides an averaged spectrum of suprathermal particles measured at 1 AU
• Hosted at CCMC and will be publicly available soon
• Physics-based SEP models showed interest in using this tool to aid in capturing event-to-event variability
• Maher Dayeh shared other �useful web tools developed at �SWRI to collect and display �space weather data
• Spirited discussion about the �source of energetic particle �acceleration

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H3-01 SEP Validation Action Items

• SEPVAL action items:
• Define the state-of-the-art to create a target for future model development
• Write a journal article
• Interpret SEPVAL results and look for trends, e.g. easy versus difficult events?
• Provide feedback and interpretations to model developers to try to identify how/where models may improve – R2O2R
• Continue SPHINX development to provide a continually updated calculation of model metrics for the SEP Scoreboards, served to the public from CCMC
• SRAG has an ongoing project to create an interactive database to serve all contextual space weather data for SEP events (SEP Knowledgebase) – collaborate with SWRI?
• Write a white paper describing the drawbacks and impacts of the GOES energetic particle measurements and advocate for better instrumentation on the future generation of NOAA space weather satellites to submit to NOAA and the community

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H3-04: CLEAR: All-Clear SEP Predictions

Discussed Items:

• Benchmark SEP Dataset
• Current status of operational SEP dataset: the implementation of the fetchSEP script that automatically calculate the background and detect SEP events from GOES (potentially applicable to any particle measurement).
• The operational SEP dataset will be made available to the entire community.
• The SEP dataset will be a living dataset and reproducible by anyone
• The contamination issue of the GOES particle instruments (low (10-30 MeV) protons are contaminated by the high (>50 MeV) protons. The rising phase of SEP event is affected and the determination of the onset time is incorrect using GOES data.
• Solution (next step): replace the GOES low energy proton data with SOHO/COSTEP

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H3-04: CLEAR: All-Clear SEP Predictions

Discussed Items:

• RELeASE prediction model
• The current status of RELeASE model
• The implementation of the STEREO RELeASE model that uses the stereo observations
• Next Step: Integrate the RELeASE model with SEPSTER (2D) to reduce the potential false positives in the SEPSTER model
• SOFIE physics-based prediction model
• The stream-aligned MHD solver for the steady state solar wind solution will provide the magnetic connectivity
• The CME driven shock from the SOFIE model is able to provide the 3D shock geometry and the properties of the shock surface, including the compression ratio, the shock angle, and etc.
• The shock capture tool will be made available to the community
• The prototype of the SOFIE model for predicting the historical SEP event is demonstrated.

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Maher A. Dayeh + Team

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H3-02 Update

Understanding the Suprathermal Seed Population

ISWAT workshop, Cape Canaveral, FL, 13 Feb 2025

Summary of what was discussed

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1. H3-02 Team and Goals (7 new members since last time)
2. Science Goals
3. Review of the Suprathermal Population: Sources and mechanisms
4. Progress:
• LWS FST team (7 teams)
• Updated progress from STEREO, ACE, SoLO, PSP, and iPath
• Radial and longitudinal evolution
• Presented a tool that enables determining the pre-event ST spectrum.

The Suprathermal Population

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e.g.: Gloeckler 2003, Mason et al. 2008, Desai et al. 2006, Mewaldt et al. 2007, Giacalone 2012, Dayeh et al. 2009, 2017, Lario et al. 2019

“seeding” SEPs

Kozarev, Dayeh, Farahat et al. 2009

Progress

2020 Living With a Star (LWS) Science Program, Focused Science Topic (FST) #3:

“The Origin and Consequences of Suprathermal Particles that Seed Solar Energetic Particles”

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Observation Oriented

1. Understanding the role of flare-accelerated suprathermal ions on spectral and abundance variations in large gradual solar energetic particle events (PI: Radoslav Bucik)
2. Suprathermal Property Scaling and Acceleration Processes from the Near-Sun Environment to 1AU (PI: Rachael Filwett)
3. The Role of Magnetic Connectivity and SEP Event History in Determining Seed Populations and Large SEP Events (PI: Christina Lee)

Modeling Oriented

1. Suprathermal Seeds for Solar Energetic Particles: Two-stage Acceleration from Flares to CME-Shocks (PI: Wei Liu)
2. Investigating the roles of turbulence and reconnection in generating suprathermal seed populations for SEP events (PI: Yi-Min Huang)
3. The Acceleration of Energetic Particles in Solar Flares and Their Transport in Solar Eruption Regions (PI: Xiaocan Li)
4. Generation of Suprathermal Seed Particle Populations by Dynamic Small-scale Flux Ropes in the Vicinity of Traveling Shocks (PI: Jakobus A. le Roux)

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Compositional Variations

Composition is solar cycle dependent (index) (flux)

Conclusion: Density of ST particles does matter, not just the spectral index

The Quiet-Times Spectrum as a function of quietness

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1. Quiet times in the interplanetary space cannot be defined by just setting a cutoff threshold or a mixture of conditions to remove particle enhancements. Instrument considerations such as the field of view, sensitivity, and background levels need to be accounted for.

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• Quiet-time analysis using the EPI-Lo instrument shows a suprathermal spectral index that decreases with “super-quiet” conditions

Discussed implications of ³He-rich Injections Originating from a Single Active Region

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Repeated ³He-rich Injections originating from AR 13363 (AR 63) followed by a large gradual SEP event from the same AR.