1. Solar Energetic Particle Environment Modelling: Pre-Release of the SEPEM Project
Norma Crosby1, Alexi Glover2, Angels Aran2, Cédric Bonnevie3, Clive Dyer4, Stephen Gabriel5, Alex Hands4, Daniel Heynderickx6, Carla Jacobs7, Piers Jiggens5, David King4, Stefaan Poedts7, Blai Sanahuja8, Pete Truscott4
1 Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy (BISA), Belgium
2 ESA/ESTEC, The Netherlands
3 BISA/RHEA
4 QinetiQ, U.K.
5 University of Southampton, U.K.
6 DH Consultancy, Belgium
7 K.U.Leuven, Belgium
8 University of Barcelona, Spain
European Space Weather Week 6, 18 November 2009, Brugge, Belgium

2. SOLAR ENERGETIC PARTICLE [SEP] EVENTS
These particles mainly are protons, electrons and heavy ions, up to the iron mass (and even beyond).
Energy Range:
dozen of keVs to a few GeVs
Temporal Range:
Sporadic [minutes to days]
Accurate modeling of the solar energetic particle environment constitutes a priority requirement for astrophysics missions and human exploration.
Modern user requirements, as well as recent observational data and scientific advances, provide considerable scope for reviewing and updating existing standard models, as well as developing new models of SEP environments .

3. OUTLINE OF TALK The SEPEM Project: Background Main Objectives of SEPEM
SEPEM Key Functions
SEPEM System Design
SEPEM Pre-Release
SEPEM Master Class

4. 1. The SEPEM Project: Background
King Model - predicts event fluences [ solar cycle 20 ( ) ]
JPL Fluence Model - predicts event fluences
JPL-85 model ( Feynman et al., 1990 ) includes observations obtained between 1956 and 1963 (during solar cycle 19).
JPL-91 model (Feynman et al., 1993) covers three solar cycles ( )
Modelling the extension to Heavy Ions [ model created for heavy ions using data from (Tylka, Dietrich & Boberg (1997) and Tylka et al. (1997) ]. Follows closely JPL-91 proton fluence model.
Emission of Solar Proton (ESP) Models [ 3 complete solar cycles (20-22) ] – statistical technique: max. entropy theory (Xapsos. et al., 2000)
The MSU Model (by R. Nymmik 2004) [ links freq. of events and cumulative SEP fluences to the total number of monthly averaged numbers of Sunspots]
Toolkit for updating interplanetary proton-cumulated fluence models (Rosenqvist et al., 2005)
Updated predictive engineering model for proton interplanetary fluence (Glover et al. 2008) – [extends work done by Rosenqvist et al.]
PSYCHIC Model (Xapsos et al., 2004 & 2007 [heavy ion extension])

5. SEPEM Project SEPEM Consortium www.oma.be/SEPEM/
Solar Energetic Particle Environment Modelling [SEPEM]
ESA project: Estec Contract No /06/NL/JD
SEPEM Consortium
SEPEM is being developed by an international consortium:
Belgian Institute for Space Aeronomy, Belgium, [Project Lead]
K.U.Leuven, Belgium
QinetiQ, UK
University of Barcelona, Spain
University of Southampton, UK
Mars Space Ltd, UK
DH Consultancy, Belgium
Project Manager: Norma B. Crosby
IT Development: Daniel Heynderickx ESA Technical Officer: Alexi Glover

6. 2. Main Objectives of SEPEM
MAIN OBJECTIVE: To create new engineering models and tools to address future needs by enabling automatic model and tools update and establishing community consensus.
To take advantage of new data and take into account recent scientific advances in understanding the generation mechanism.
To move beyond a model generating only mission integrated fluence statistics for a given confidence level (for dose, solar array degradation), by including peak flux statistics, durations of high flux periods and other outputs suitable for SEU rate and radiation background calculations so that past events and future scenarios can be simulated.
To improve existing physics-based shock-propagation models to predict the expected event-time profiles at non-Earth locations with a view to obtaining a new model of helio-radial dependence of events [SOLPENCO2].
Creation of a standard solar energetic particle dataset [include all known data caveats] - complete set of cross-calibrated data.
To develop a User-friendly webserver with access to the spacecraft data and the tools and models being developed under SEPEM.

7. 3. SEPEM Key Functions
Providing access to the Data: The data must be easy accessible at various cleaning stages, as users might want to use the raw data or skip some data cleaning steps and apply their own cleaning processes.
Statistical Modeling: Statistical modeling of peak fluxes and fluences of observed data as well as simulated data at 1 AU and non-Earth locations are performed. A set of statistics tools is being developed.
Radiation Effects Tools: A set of tools for evaluating statistics of radiation effects (TID, SEE) are being developed.
Investigating Helioradial Variation: The flux and fluence observations at 1 AU are compared with equivalent outputs from the SOLPENCO2 model. [“SOLar Particle ENgineering Code 2: developed by using a new version of the physics-based "shock-and-particle model”]

8. 4. SEPEM System Design
User-friendly Webserver provides access to data, tools and models developed under SEPEM. The users will be able to make queries on the database, view and plot the data, and run a set of processing and effects tools. Currently, event lists and spectra can be generated on the fly.
Storage system is MySQL:
Raw data tables and processed data
Channel and metadata information
Registration and logging of Web server users
Description of devices for effects tools and macro output files from effects tool
Event lists
Scripting language is php:
Downloading and parsing of datasets
Population of database
Table manipulation and editing
Creation of macro files for monte caro effects tools and running the tools
Data processing tools are written in SQL stored procedures where possible
Plotting tools are written in IDL

9. pre-release of SEPEM project
5. SEPEM Pre-Release
SEPEM is currently under development.
Complete set of SEPEM functionalities is being phased-in with completion scheduled for 2010.
Use of SEPEM will be free of charge, but registration will be required and can be done from the homepage.
pre-release of SEPEM project

10. Browsing & Plotting Tools:
With SEPEM the user will be able to browse and plot selected time intervals [epoch ranges or events durations] of various solar energetic particle datasets.

11. Effects Tools:
SEPEM will produce output data aimed at the calculation of effects (e.g. peak fluxes and fluences) and will be able to export spectra in a form that can be accepted as input to effects tools.
Geant4 MUlti-LAyered Shielding SImulation Software [MULASSIS] tool: total ionising dose, non-ionising dose, particle fluences/fluxes and energy deposition spectra may be determined as a function of shielding.
Geant4 Microdosimetry Analysis Tool [GEMAT]: simulation and analysis of single event effects based on SEPE predictions.
[Geant4 is a toolkit for the simulation of the passage of particles through matter.]

12. Event Lists and Statistical Analyses:
Easily generate event lists based on any dataset [user defined threshold] or effects response function.
Run the statistical tools (e.g. JPL) on any given event lists
[“measured” or “generated effects”].

13. Event Frequency Distribution
Truncated Power Law

14. Cumulative Fluence for 2 Years
Normal Probability Plot

15. SOLPENCO2: SOLPENCO (SOLar Particle ENgineering COde) TOOL:
First step towards an operational tool which is able to quantitatively predict proton flux and fluence profiles of solar energetic particle (SEP) events associated with interplanetary shocks (Aran et al. 2006).
Based on the shock-and-particle model by Lario et al. (1998) that assumes that the injection of shock-accelerated particles takes place at the cobpoint (the point on the front of the shock that magnetically connects with the observer, Heras et al. 1995).
SOLPENCO2 OBJECTIVE: To build a new particle flux and fluence data base (SOLPENCO2) for inclusion in SEPEM from the development of an improved shock-and-particle model.
This new version will provide rapid and improved synthetic intensity profiles and Peak Intensities & Fluences [PI&F] predictions for observers located from ~0.1 AU up to 1.7 AU.
This model provides a better description of the background solar wind and of the initial conditions of the event.
The initial boundary at a few solar radii allows to track the initial stages of SEP events where the acceleration of particles in more efficient, and thus, improve the determination of the PI&F in well-connected and central meridian events.
Poster Session 5 “Variations of the Peak Flux of SEP Events: Influence of the Interplanetary Shock and the Spacecraft Magnetic Connection” by Angels Aran et al..

16. Standard Solar Energetic Particle Dataset:
The SEPEM standard solar energetic particle dataset is being generated to include all known data caveats and represents the “best effort” dataset that could be generated based on the information retrieved from instrument teams and a complete literature search.
Datasets have been cleaned for spikes and other errors/effects and gaps have been filled where possible.
We invite the community to share experiences with data caveats and data cleaning procedures!

17. Join us TODAY at the Space Weather Fair
6. SEPEM Master Class:
Join us TODAY at the Space Weather Fair
Wednesday, 18 Nov. 2009, 16:30-18:30
for the pre-release of the ESA Solar Energetic Particle Environment Modelling (SEPEM) application server.
For further information and/or to be added to the SEPEM mailing list please contact N. Crosby [ ]