Related papers: Positron Processes in the Sun
The measurement of gamma rays from cosmic sources at MeV energies is one of the key tools for nuclear astrophysics, in its study of nuclear reactions and their impacts on objects and phenomena throughout the universe. Gamma rays trace…
This chapter is intended to provide a general presentation of the atomic and nuclear processes responsible for X-ray line and gamma-ray line emission in various astrophysical environments. I consider line production from hot plasmas, from…
It is essential that there be coordinated and co-optimized observations in X-rays, gamma-rays, and EUV during the peak of solar cycle 26 (~2036) to significantly advance our understanding of impulsive energy release in the corona. The open…
The Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) observed two bright X-class solar flares on 2012 March 7, and detected gamma-rays up to 4 GeV. We detected gamma-rays both during the impulsive and temporally-extended emission phases, with emission…
Calculations of gamma spectra for positron annihilation on a selection of molecules, including methane and its fluoro-substitutes, ethane, propane, butane and benzene are presented. The annihilation gamma spectra characterise the momentum…
There are relatively few observations of UV emission during the impulsive phases of solar flares, so the nature of that emission is poorly known. Photons produced by solar flares can resonantly scatter off atoms and ions in the corona.…
Large solar eruptions are often associated with long-duration gamma-ray emission extending well above 100 MeV. While this phenomenon is known to be caused by high-energy ions interacting with the solar atmosphere, the underlying dominant…
This paper is in response to a technical paper, entitled "Evidence for a New Component of High-Energy Solar Gamma-Ray Production" (Linden, et al., 2018). An article in Scientific American entitled "The Sun Is Spitting Out Strange Patterns…
We propose a model in which prompt gamma emission of gamma-ray bursts is the synchrotron radiation of electron-positron plasma in the ordered magnetic field in the direct vicinity of horizon of a young black hole formed in the core collapse…
Synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) process in the reverse shocks of gamma-ray bursts is suggested to be responsible for the observed prompt high-energy gamma-ray emissions from several gamma-ray bursts. We find that the SSC emission from the…
High energy (~GeV) positrons are seen within cosmic rays and observation of a narrow line at 511 keV shows that positrons are annihilating in the galaxy after slowing down to ~keV energies or less. Our state of knowledge of the origin of…
Gamma-ray spectroscopy provides diagnostics of particle acceleration in solar flares, but care must be taken when interpreting the spectra due to effects of the angular distribution of the accelerated particles (such as relativistic…
We briefly review the theory of gamma ray production in solar flares and present the highlights of the observations and their implications. Specifically: (i) the gamma ray data show that a large fraction of the released flare energy is in…
In this study, a fully self-consistent method was developed to obtain the wave functions of the positron and electrons in molecules simultaneously. The wave function of a positron at room temperature , with a characteristic energy of…
Cosmic rays can interact with the solar atmosphere and produce a slew of secondary messengers, making the Sun a bright gamma-ray source in the sky. Detailed observations with Fermi-LAT have shown that these interactions must be strongly…
To predict line emission in the solar atmosphere requires models which are fundamentally different depending on whether the emission is from the chromosphere or the corona. At some point between the two regions, there must be a change…
Even 50 years after the discovery of a positron annihilation line from the inner Galaxy, no class of astrophysical sources has emerged as a definitive explanation for both the emission morphology and flux. Positrons produced by dark matter…
In the Milky Way galaxy, positrons, which are responsible for the diffuse $511\,\mathrm{keV}$ gamma ray emission observed by space-based gamma ray observatories, are thought to annihilate predominantly through charge exchange interactions…
The bulge of our Galaxy is illuminated by the 0.511 MeV gamma-ray line flux from annihilations of nonrelativistic positrons. The emission is strongly concentrated at the Galactic Center, in contrast to gamma-ray maps tracing nucleosynthesis…
We show that the positron excess measured by the PAMELA experiment in the region between 10 and 100 GeV may well be a natural consequence of the standard scenario for the origin of Galactic cosmic rays. The 'excess' arises because of…