Research Article

The soft X-ray Neupert effect as a proxy for solar energetic particle injection

A proof-of-concept physics-based forecasting model

¹ Center for Space Research, North-West University, 2531 Potchefstroom, South Africa
² Helmholtz Centre Potsdam, GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Telegrafenberg, 14473 Potsdam, Germany
³ Bay Area Environmental Research Institute, NASA Research Park, Moffett Field, CA 94035, USA
⁴ Institut für Experimentelle und Angewandte Physik, Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel, 24118 Kiel, Germany

^* Corresponding author: ruhann.steyn@nwu.ac.za

Received: 24 August 2020
Accepted: 16 November 2020

Abstract

The acceleration and injection of solar energetic particles (SEPs) near the Sun is one of the major unsolved problems in contemporary SEP transport modeling efforts. Here, we establish a new approach to the injection problem by utilizing a correlation between the soft X-ray thermal emission in solar flares, and their hard X-ray counterpart, the so-called Neupert effect, which is indicative of the presence of non-thermal particles. We show that the resulting injection function, in the initial phase of the flare, is similar to those inferred from inverting the transport problem based on in-situ observations. For few cases, we find early injections with no in-situ correspondence, that can be caused by particles accelerated before there is a magnetic connection between the source and the spacecraft. The method has limitations for long-duration injections, since it is not applicable to the decay phase of the flare where particle trapping might play a role. For a sample of SEP events in 1980, observed with the Helios-1 and IMP8 spacecraft, we show the results of a 2D SEP transport model based on this approach. We discuss that, with this method, a physics-based, real-time operational SEP now-cast model for the heliosphere is feasible.