SOLAR ENERGETIC IONS CREATED IN A RECONNECTION LAYER BY ALFVEN-WAVE PICKUP

It is well known that freshly created ions can be picked up by a movin g plasma via self-consistently excited Alfven waves, as discovered in cometary physics in the late 1980s. This paper discusses the ion picku p process in a regime very different from what has been investigated b efore. We show that such a process can occur inside a magnetic reconne ction layer. We suggest that this process might explain the origin of solar energetic ions associated with flares. In order to demonstrate t hat the acceleration process is rapid and efficient, a series of numer ical simulations are carried out for the parameter regime relevant to solar active regions in the lower corona. Simulation results show that not only can the newly created ions that result from ionization of ne utral atoms be accelerated, but the background thermal ions can be int ensely heated as well when they interact with the excited Alfven waves .