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FERMI-LAT OBSERVATIONS FROM 2008 TO 2020 UNVEILED SPECTRAL TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL FEATURES OF GAMMA-RAYS EMISSION FROM THE DISK AND HALO OF THE SUN THAT THEORETICAL MODELS ARE UNABLE TO EXPLAIN. LINDEN ET AL. PRL 121 131103 2018 SHOWED THAT THE AVAILABLE MODEL (SECKEL ET AL. APJ 382 652 1991) BASED ON MULTI-GEV TO TEV GALACTIC COSMIC-RAY (GCR) PROTONS BOUNCING BACK FROM THE SOLAR ATMOSPHERE AND THEREIN PRODUCING OUTGOING GAMMA-RAYS UNDERPREDICTS THE ~10 GEV PHOTON FLUX BY A FACTOR ~10. THESE OBSERVATIONS INDIRECTLY PROBE MAGNETIC FIELDS AND GCR TRANSPORT IN THE INNER HELIOSPHERE AND THE SOLAR ATMOSPHERE. PARKER SOLAR PROBE (PSP) HAS ALREADY REACHED THE CLOSEST DISTANCE TO THE SUN THAN ANY OTHER SPACECRAFT EVER BEFORE. PSP UNEXPECTEDLY FOUND THAT THE SOLAR WIND (SW) OUTFLOW IS LOCALLY REVERSED IN S-SHAPED STRUCTURES CALLED SWITCHBACKS (BALE ET AL. NATURE 1 2019) THAT HAD BEEN FOUND BY THE PREVIOUS MISSION HELIOS AS CLOSE AS ~0.3 AU TO THE SUN BUT ARE NOW KNOWN TO BE MUCH MORE COMMON CLOSER TO THE SUN. SCIENCE GOALS THIS PROPOSAL WILL INVESTIGATE THE ROLE OF THE TRANSPORT OF GEV-TEV GCRS IN THE MAGNETIC TURBULENCE AND IN SWITCHBACKS BY BRIDGING PSP WITH ONE OF THE MOST SUCCESSFUL AND PRODUCTIVE NASA MISSION OF THE PAST DECADE (FERMI). THE MAGNETIC TURBULENCE OF THE SW AT SMALL HELIOCENTRIC DISTANCES PROBED BY GCRS WILL BE CONSTRAINED BY LEVERAGING ON THE STEADILY INCREASING PSP DATABASE. IN PARTICULAR WE WILL INVESTIGATE THE SWITCHBACKS AS TURBULENT OR LAMINAR TRAPPING STRUCTURES FOR MULTI-GEV PROTONS AROUND THE SUN. SECONDLY WE WILL MODEL THE TRANSPORT OF GCRS CLOSE TO THE SUN ATMOSPHERE IN A REGIME OF LOW PITCH-ANGLE SCATTERING FREQUENCY. THIRDLY WE WILL COMPARE RADIO MAPS IN QUIET SW TO INFER TRANSPORT PROPERTIES OF ENERGETIC ELECTRONS BETWEEN MEV AND GEV. METHODOLOGY WE AIM AT A COORDINATED OBSERVATIONS/MODELLING EFFORT FOCUSING ON TWO DIFFERENT DISTANCES FROM THE SUN: IN-SITU MEASUREMENTS OF PSP PARTICLES (ISOIS SWEAP) AND PSP MAGNETIC FIELD (FIELDS) MULTI-GEV FLUX OBSERVATIONS FROM FERMI-LAT. WE LEVERAGE ON A LONG-ESTABLISHED VERSATILE EXPERTISE: THE UNIV OF ARIZONA WILL PROVIDE EXPERTISE IN THEORY OF PARTICLE TRANSPORT IN MAGNETIC TURBULENCE (TEST-PARTICLE SIMULATIONS IN MAGNETOSTATIC TURBULENCE SOLUTION TO THE FOCUSED TRANSPORT EQUATION) AND RADIATION MECHANISMS (NEUTRAL PION DECAY FROM PROTONS RADIO-SYNCHROTRON OR INVERSE COMPTON FOR ELECTRONS) MODELLING OF PSP DATA OHIO STATE UNIV. WILL PROVIDE EXPERTISE ON RADIATION MECHANISMS AND ON FERMI-LAT DATA ANALYSIS. STATEMENT OF RELEVANCE THIS PROJECT DIRECTLY ADDRESSES THE OVERARCHING GOAL AS DESCRIBED IN B.1 OF THE ROSES 2020 SOLICITATION EXPLORE AND CHARACTERIZE THE PHYSICAL PROCESSES IN THE SPACE ENVIRONMENT FROM THE SUN TO THE HELIOPAUSE AND THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE . THE PROJECT ALSO GOES BEYOND THE GOAL OF NASA MISSIONS BY ADDRESSING THE FOURTH HIGH-LEVEL SCIENCE GOAL FROM THE 2013-2022 HELIOPHYSICS DECADAL SURVEY ``SOLAR AND SPACE PHYSICS: A SCIENCE FOR A TECHNOLOGICAL SOCIETY'': DISCOVER AND CHARACTERIZE FUNDAMENTAL PROCESSES THAT OCCUR BOTH WITHIN THE HELIOSPHERE AND THROUGHOUT THE UNIVERSE . MANAGEMENT PLAN THIS PROPOSAL ASSIGNS WELL-DEFINED TASKS TO THE TEAM MEMBERS ESSENTIAL TO THE COMPLETION OF THE PROJECT: UNIV. OF ARIZONA TEAM INCLUDES PI F. FRASCHETTI CO-IS J. GIACALONE AND J. KOTA ONE POST-DOCTORAL RESEARCHER (YET UNIDENTIFIED WILL BE HIRED ACCORDING TO THEIR INTEREST/EXPERTISE). OHIO STATE UNIV. TEAM INCLUDES CO-IS A. PETER J. BEACOM AND ONE IDENTIFIED GRADUATE STUDENT.

$754,501FY2022National Aeronautics and Space AdministrationNASA

University Of Arizona, Tucson AZ

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