ENERGETIC PARTICLE INVESTIGATION USING THE ERNE INSTRUMENT

During solar flares and coronal mass ejections, nuclei and electrons a ccelerated to high energies are injected into interplanetary space. Th ese accelerated particles can be detected at the SOHO satellite by the ERNE instrument. From the data produced by the instrument, it is poss ible to identify the particles and to calculate their energy and direc tion of propagation. Depending on variable coronal/interplanetary cond itions, different kinds of effects on the energetic particle transport can be predicted. The problems of interest include, for example, the effects of particle properties (mass, charge, energy, and propagation direction) on the particle transport, the particle energy changes in t he transport process, and the effects the energetic particles have on the solar-wind plasma. The evolution of the distribution function of t he energetic particles can be measured with ERNE to a better accuracy than ever before. This gives us the opportunity to contribute signific antly to the modeling of interplanetary transport and acceleration. On ce the acceleration/transport bias has been removed, the acceleration- site abundance of elements and their isotopes can be studied in detail and compared with spectroscopic observations.