New Insights into High-Energy Processes on the Sun and Their Geospace Consequences

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About this Research Topic

Submission deadlines

  1. Manuscript Submission Deadline 23 February 2024 | Manuscript Extension Submission Deadline 30 September 2024

Background

The Sun releases an enormous amount of energy during explosive solar activities, such as solar flares and coronal mass ejections. The solar corona can be heated up to tens of millions of degrees and a large number of charged particles can be accelerated to nearly the speed of light. Heated plasmas and high-energy particles increase solar radiations across the whole electromagnetic spectrum, from radio to gamma-ray wavelengths, which can have a profound effect on the Earth’s upper atmosphere immediately after about eight minutes. These create additional ionization and heating in the Earth’s upper atmosphere, leading to radio blackout, GNSS signal interferences and tracking loss, increased drag on spacecraft, etc. Recent studies have demonstrated that the effects can extend to the Earth’s magnetosphere via electrodynamic coupling. When the high-energy particles propagate through the interplanetary medium and arrive at the vicinity of the Earth, known as solar energetic particle (SEP) events, they can pose hazardous radiation threats to astronauts and spacecraft electronics in space.

Understanding the origin, acceleration, transport of energetic particles, and their geospace consequences remains an outstanding question in solar-terrestrial physics and space weather research. Although it is believed that magnetic reconnection plays an important role in releasing magnetic energy in solar flares, the primary particle acceleration mechanism remains unclear. The acceleration and transport of SEPs are affected by large-scale magnetic structures in the corona and interplanetary medium, and it remains unresolved where and how the highest-energy SEPs are accelerated. Modern multiwavelength observations from both ground-based and spaceborne instruments (e.g., EOVSA, LOFAR, MUSER, DSRT, Parker Solar Probe, Solar Orbiter, ASO-S) have provided new opportunities for a comprehensive understanding of high-energy processes on the Sun. Significant advances in numerical modeling by coupling particle model with macroscopic MHD simulation of solar eruptions have enabled direct comparisons with flare and SEP observations.

This proposed research topic aims at collecting scientific contributions on high-energy processes on the Sun and their impacts on the Earth and other planets. We welcome observation, theory and modeling studies on (but not limited to) the following subjects, in the form of both original research articles and reviews.
1. Multiwavelength observations of energy release, conversion, and partition in solar flares;
2. Acceleration and transport of energetic particles near the Sun and in the interplanetary space;
3. Solar radio bursts and kinetic simulation of coherent radio emissions;
4. Source of energetic particles in Fermi/LAT gamma-ray flare events, and correlation with SEPs in the interplanetary space;
5. Modeling and detection of solar energetic neutrons and solar energetic neutral atoms (ENAs);
6. Impacts of solar eruptions on the coupled magnetosphere–ionosphere–thermosphere system.

Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

  • Brief Research Report
  • Data Report
  • Editorial
  • General Commentary
  • Hypothesis and Theory
  • Methods
  • Mini Review
  • Opinion
  • Original Research

Articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to Authors, institutions, or funders.

Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

  • Brief Research Report
  • Data Report
  • Editorial
  • General Commentary
  • Hypothesis and Theory
  • Methods
  • Mini Review
  • Opinion
  • Original Research
  • Perspective
  • Review
  • Technology and Code

Keywords: Solar eruptions, Solar energetic particles, X-ray and gamma-ray emissions, Solar radio bursts, Particle acceleration, Space weather, Magnetosphere–ionosphere–thermosphere coupling

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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