Institute for Physical Science & Technology

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Glenn M. Mason

Professor, Joint/Physics
Space Physics

The origin and evolution of the solar system and galaxy can be studied by measuring the composition of their condensed and gaseous materials. These compositional data contain information on processes that created the material both in the big-bang, in later nucleosynthetic processing, and, more recently, in fractionation processes associated with the condensation of the material from the interstellar medium into stars, planets, and smaller objects. Since astrophysical objects routinely accelerate ions to high energies, multiple streams of particles from a wide variety of sites fill the interplanetary space near Earth. These energetic particle streams may be sampled, studied, and probed for information about their parent sites and the processes that accelerated and brought them here. Professor Mason is studying these energetic particle populations in collaboration with members of the Space Physics group and with experimental groups in U.S. and in Europe. Professor Mason's experiments on the SAMPEX, WIND, and Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft are studying particle acceleration in solar flares, interplanetary shocks, and the so-called anomalous cosmic rays, which are interstellar material accelerated in the outer regions of the heliosphere.

Selected publications:

1. Mason, G.M., J.E. Mazur, and T.T. von Rosenvinge, Energetic heavy ions observed upstream of the Earth's bow shock by the STEP/EPACT instrument on WIND, Geophys. Res. Letters, 23, 1231-1234, 1996.
2. Dwyer, J.R., G.M. Mason, J.E. Mazur, J.R. Jokipii, T.T. von Rosenvinge, and R.P. Lepping, Perpendicular transport of low energy corotating interaction region_associated nuclei, Astrophys. J. (Letters), 490, L115-L118, 1997.
3. Mazur, J.E., G.M. Mason, J.R. Dwyer, and T.T. von Rosenvinge, Solar energetic particles inside magnetic clouds observed with the Wind spacecraft, Geophys. Res. Letters, 25, 2521-2524, 1998.

Intesities of energetic nuclei measured on the ACE spacecraft following 2 solar flare explosions in November 1997.