Energetic Particles in the Heliosphere

1st Edition George M. Simnett (Auth.)

Visit to download the full and correct content document:
https://textbookfull.com/product/energetic-particles-in-the-heliosphere-1st-edition-geor
ge-m-simnett-auth/
More products digital (pdf, epub, mobi) instant
download maybe you interests ...

Artificial Intelligence in Renewable Energetic Systems

Mustapha Hatti

https://textbookfull.com/product/artificial-intelligence-in-
renewable-energetic-systems-mustapha-hatti/

Ecology and management of blackbirds (Icteridae) in

North America 1st Edition George M. Linz

https://textbookfull.com/product/ecology-and-management-of-
blackbirds-icteridae-in-north-america-1st-edition-george-m-linz/

George Eliot for the Twenty-First Century K. M. Newton

https://textbookfull.com/product/george-eliot-for-the-twenty-
first-century-k-m-newton/

George White and the Victorian Army in India and

Africa: Serving the Empire Stephen M. Miller

https://textbookfull.com/product/george-white-and-the-victorian-
army-in-india-and-africa-serving-the-empire-stephen-m-miller/
Decision in the Ukraine German Panzer Operations on the
Eastern Front Summer 1943 George M Nipe Jr

https://textbookfull.com/product/decision-in-the-ukraine-german-
panzer-operations-on-the-eastern-front-summer-1943-george-m-nipe-
jr/

Energetic nanomaterials : synthesis, characterization,

and application 1st Edition Vladimir E Zarko

https://textbookfull.com/product/energetic-nanomaterials-
synthesis-characterization-and-application-1st-edition-vladimir-
e-zarko/

The Origin of Mass: Elementary Particles and

Fundamental Symmetries 1st Edition John Iliopoulos

https://textbookfull.com/product/the-origin-of-mass-elementary-
particles-and-fundamental-symmetries-1st-edition-john-iliopoulos/

Particles in the Air The Deadliest Pollutant is One You

Breathe Every Day Doug Brugge

https://textbookfull.com/product/particles-in-the-air-the-
deadliest-pollutant-is-one-you-breathe-every-day-doug-brugge/

Shielding of Electromagnetic Waves: Theory and Practice

George M. Kunkel

https://textbookfull.com/product/shielding-of-electromagnetic-
waves-theory-and-practice-george-m-kunkel/
Astrophysics and Space Science Library 438

George M. Simnett

Energetic Particles
in the Heliosphere
Energetic Particles in the Heliosphere
 Astrophysics and Space Science Library
EDITORIAL BOARD
Chairman
W. B. BURTON, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville,
Virginia, U.S.A. (bburton@nrao.edu); University of Leiden, The Netherlands
(burton@strw.leidenuniv.nl)
F. BERTOLA, University of Padua, Italy
C. J. CESARSKY, Commission for Atomic Energy, Saclay, France
P. EHRENFREUND, Leiden University, The Netherlands
O. ENGVOLD, University of Oslo, Norway
A. HECK, Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory, France
E. P. J. VAN DEN HEUVEL, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands
V. M. KASPI, McGill University, Montreal, Canada
J. M. E. KUIJPERS, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands
H. VAN DER LAAN, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands
P. G. MURDIN, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, UK
B. V. SOMOV, Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University, Russia
R. A. SUNYAEV, Space Research Institute, Moscow, Russia

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/5664

George M. Simnett

Energetic Particles
in the Heliosphere

123
George M. Simnett
Birmingham, United Kingdom

ISSN 0067-0057 ISSN 2214-7985 (electronic)

Astrophysics and Space Science Library
ISBN 978-3-319-43493-3 ISBN 978-3-319-43495-7 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43495-7

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016959385

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017

This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of
the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation,
broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information
storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology
now known or hereafter developed.
The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication
does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant
protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use.
The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book
are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or
the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any
errors or omissions that may have been made.

Cover illustration: The heliosheath. Red and blue spirals are the gracefully curving magnetic field lines
of orthodox models. New data from Voyager add a magnetic froth to the mix. Credit: NASA

Printed on acid-free paper

This Springer imprint is published by Springer Nature

The registered company is Springer International Publishing AG
The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
Preface

In the 70 years since the end of WWII, we have gone from having just a few
people who suspected that space was populated with energetic particles to the
current situation whereby anyone who is interested can, through the literature and
the Internet, access the wealth of data on energetic particles in the heliosphere. The
cosmic rays were the first to be discovered in 1912. Chapman and Ferraro in 1930
suggested that magnetic storms were caused by plasma emitted from the Sun, but
their audience was small, as was the particle energy in the plasma. It wasn’t until the
1950s that we began to realise, mainly via high altitude balloon flights, that there
were lots of energetic particles “out there”.
Since 1960 many spacecraft have monitored not only energetic charged
particles but magnetic fields and electromagnetic radiation from radio wavelengths
to high energy  -rays. Some have gone in towards the Sun, but the majority have
stayed around 1 AU. A few have ventured further afield, but only one, Ulysses,
has gone to high heliographic latitudes. The most ambitious mission has seen the
two Voyager spacecraft travel to the edge of the heliosphere (Voyager-2, 2015) and
beyond (Voyager-1, 2012). When the New Horizons spacecraft reached Pluto in July
2015 after an 8.5-year journey, it completed visits to all the Solar System planets.
There are currently, as far as I know, no approved missions which will go to a
region of the heliosphere which has not already been observed. Thus it is appropriate
to step back and examine what we have learnt over the last 70 years. We know that
the Sun is the engine powering the local acceleration of energetic particles. But
we don’t know with certainty how it does so. In our Galaxy and beyond, there are
individual particles that have energies of over 1020 eV, which is comparable to the
energy imparted to a tennis ball served by Djokovic. The Sun struggles to make it
much beyond 1010 eV.
I have addressed all the interesting phenomena that I am aware of regarding
energetic particles in the heliosphere. This inevitably brings in the magnetic field,
which I suspect is considerably more complex and transient than currently envis-
aged. Some of the planets themselves accelerate protons and electrons. Through
observing relativistic electrons, we can deduce that Jupiter is the most important
continuous source of energetic electrons, at least up to 20 MeV. By studying their

v
vi Preface

properties when they are detected near Earth, we can confirm theoretical models of
the heliospheric magnetic field in the ecliptic plane.
The examples that I have used stem from data that I am most familiar with.
Others could be cross that I have not referred to their work, for which I apologise.
One topic that is not addressed is the charge state of the detected energetic ions
coming from the Sun, other than for helium. For any event, the ions’ charge state
is a mixture of thermal and nonthermal ionization. Thermal ionization can only be
an approximation as the source at the Sun is almost certainly not in equilibrium and
probably never has been. Nonthermal ionization is virtually unknown as it requires
knowledge of the energy spectrum and elemental composition of the interacting
particles in the chromosphere/corona. There are so many unknown parameters that
understanding the truth is just like a “can of worms”.
The theoretical side of charged particle acceleration was investigated by my
colleague and friend Ed Roelof, with whom I shared an office in 1967 when we
were both at Goddard Space Flight Center. Ed made a valuable contribution to the
Corotating Interaction Region study, for which I thank him. Reluctantly he felt he
could not follow this up with a suitable account of charged particle acceleration at
the Sun and within coronal mass ejections.
Finally I wish to thank my colleagues for providing high-quality original figures
and Springer for inviting me to write this book.

Torquay, UK George M. Simnett

31 July 2016
Contents

1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.1 Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 The First Energetic Particle Observations Outside
the Magnetosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
2 Instrumentation .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2.1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
3 Energetic Particle Acceleration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3.2 Acceleration Mechanisms.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2.1 Electron and Proton Acceleration .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.3 Where Does the Acceleration Take Place at Times of Flares? . . . . . 28
3.4 Spectral Evolution of the X-Ray Emission.. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
3.5 Location of the Acceleration.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.5.1 Coronal Acceleration .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3.5.2 Acceleration in the Active Region . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.5.3 CME-Driven Shock Acceleration .. . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
3.6 Abundance Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
3.7 Application to Flares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
3.8 Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43
4 Solar Electrons as a Probe of the Inner Heliosphere .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
4.2 Sources of Energetic Electrons in the Inner Heliosphere .. . . . . . . . . . 47
4.2.1 Coronal Source . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
4.2.2 The Upper Energy of Impulsive Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
4.2.3 The Events in June 2004 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
4.2.4 Analysis of Beamed Electron Events ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

vii
viii Contents

4.3 Solar Flares . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

4.4 Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
4.4.1 The July 1968 Event .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
4.4.2 Electrons from the 28 October 2003 Event .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
4.4.3 The 7–10 May 2001 Event . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81
4.5 Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
5 Studies of Energetic Ions in the Inner Heliosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.1 Historical Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
5.2 Ground-Level Events.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 90
5.2.1 29 September 1989 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.2.2 24 May 1990 .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
5.2.3 28 October 2003 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
5.2.4 20 January 2005 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
5.3 Other Solar Proton Events . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97
5.4 Protons Below 5 MeV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
5.4.1 Interplanetary Shocks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
5.5 3 He-Rich Events .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
5.5.1 3 He at Energies Above 10 MeV . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5.5.2 Elemental Composition . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.6 STEREO .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
5.7 Summary.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
6 Corotating Interaction Regions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6.1 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121
6.2 Ulysses Observations of CIRs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
6.3 Insights into Heliospheric Structure from CIR Studies .. . . . . . . . . . . . 125
6.3.1 Other Phenomena at CIRs . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
6.4 The Modification to the Parker Magnetic Field .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 132
6.5 Theoretical Interpretation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.5.1 Adiabatic Energy Losses of Charged Particles .. . . . . . . . . . . 135
6.5.2 Application to the Observations from CIRs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
6.5.3 Discussion and Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
6.6 Conclusions .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
7 Studies of the High Latitude Heliosphere . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
7.1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
7.1.1 Background to Solar Energetic Particle Observations . . . . 147
7.2 Overview of the Energetic Particle Intensities
Over the Solar Poles During Solar Minimum .. .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149
7.3 Overview of the Energetic Particle Intensities
Over the Solar Poles During Solar Maximum . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 152
7.4 Solar Flare Events When Ulysses Was at High Latitude . . . . . . . . . . . 158
Contents ix

7.4.1 The July 14 2000 Flare . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159

7.4.2 The 12 September 2000 Event . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
7.4.3 Electron Onsets from Four Other Flares When
Ulysses Is at High Latitude .. . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
7.4.4 Transient Events at High Latitude . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
7.5 The Decay of the Electron Intensity at Ulysses and ACE . . . . . . . . . . 171
7.5.1 12 September 2000 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
7.5.2 8 November 2000 .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
7.5.3 4 November 2001 .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
7.5.4 17 November 2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
7.5.5 The Activity Around N35ı in
August/September 2002 .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177
7.5.6 The CME at Ulysses on 29 September (Day
272) 2001 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
7.5.7 Protons at the Time of the CME . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 182
7.6 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186
8 The Anomalous Cosmic Rays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
8.1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
8.2 Observations .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
8.2.1 Measurements from Voyager-1 and -2 .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
8.3 Acceleration at the Termination Shock .. . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 196
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 200
9 Studies of the Distant Heliosphere Beyond Jupiter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
9.1 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
9.2 Up to 70 AU . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
9.3 The Outer Heliosphere . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 210
9.4 The Transition to the Interstellar Medium . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 217
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
10 Energetic Particles from Planetary Magnetospheres . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
10.1 Introduction .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223
10.2 The Earth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 224
10.3 The Outer Planets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
10.3.1 Jupiter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227
10.3.2 Saturn . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 231
10.3.3 Uranus .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 233
10.3.4 Neptune . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 234
10.4 Conclusions: Trapped Electrons and Protons . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 235
References .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237
11 What About the Future? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
11.1 History . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239
11.2 The Present . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 240
11.3 The Future . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241
Chapter 1
Introduction

1.1 Historical Background

Just over a century ago cosmic rays were discovered. Around the turn of the C20th
it was recognised that the Earth’s atmosphere contained ions but the consensus
was that these originated from radiation coming from radioactive elements in the
Earth’s crust. Which was largely true. A dramatic confirmation of this comes from
gamma-ray detectors launched under balloons, which experience a rapid reduction
in counting rate as they move up a few hundred metres through the atmosphere. In
1912 Victor Hess took three electroscopes underneath a balloon up to an altitude
of 5 km and discovered that the radiation level at altitude was around three times
that on the ground. By the end of the 1920s it was generally agreed that the extra
radiation was coming from beyond the Earth. An exciting new field was born.
It was a natural consequence therefore to develop instruments to monitor this
radiation at ground level as it was impractical to do this full-time with instruments
flown under balloons. Starting in the 1930s an instrument developed by Compton
et al. (1934) was employed to study at ground level the intensity of the cosmic
rays. Simpson and colleagues developed this instrument into the neutron monitor
(Simpson et al. 1953) and today there is a world-wide network of neutron monitors
devoted to the study of high energy particles incident on the atmosphere.
The neutron monitor uses a proportional counter filled with gas which has a
significant amount of 10 BF3 . The 10 B isotope has a neutron capture cross-section
inversely proportional to the neutron velocity. When it captures a free neutron an
alpha particle is emitted via the following reaction:
10
B C n ) 11 B ) 7 Li C 4 HeCC C Q (1.1)

The alpha particle in general will lose its kinetic energy within the proportional
counter. Therefore by setting the pulse height threshold just under the alpha particle
energy most of the background can be eliminated. The next step is to increase the

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 1

G.M. Simnett, Energetic Particles in the Heliosphere, Astrophysics and Space
Science Library 438, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43495-7_1
2 1 Introduction

Fig. 1.1 The neutron monitor developed by Simpson et al. (1953) (see text)

fast neutron production by surrounding the counter with lead. This makes use of
the fact that if a strongly-interacting particle hits a lead nucleus neutrons will be
emitted. The multiplicity of fast neutron production varies with atomic weight, A,
as A2=3 . Figure 1.1a shows a cross-section of one unit, which has two proportional
counters almost surrounded by lead. The whole is encased in paraffin wax which
slow down the fast neutrons coming from the lead nucleus and some of these will
be absorbed by the 10 B. Figure 1.1b shows a neutron monitor pile, extended to 12
of the counters shown in Fig. 1.1a.
During the 1940s Forbush (1946) was monitoring the galactic cosmic rays
with a network of ground-level neutron monitors and noticed two remarkable
things. He found that occasionally there was an increase in intensity followed
by a significant decrease, which had a slow recovery to pre-event levels. He
speculated that the increase was caused by energetic particles emitted by the Sun,
as the increases occurred at the time of a major solar flare which a few days
later produced a geomagnetic storm at Earth. The high energy protons interact
with atmospheric nuclei, causing a shower of secondary particles which move
downwards. The threshold proton energy needed to produce enough neutrons and
other strongly-interacting particles to reach the ground is 0.6 GeV. A magnetic
storm is recognised as an increase in the horizontal intensity of the Earth’s magnetic
field at the geomagnetic equator followed by a decrease of 50 to 600 nT, which
is the main phase of the storm and lasts anywhere from 2 to 8 h. As we go towards
the geomagnetic equator, the Earth’s magnetic field takes over from atmospheric
absorption regarding the threshold energy, so that at the equator the threshold energy
is closer to 10 GeV. There is an east-west effect due to the fact that the main cosmic
rays are positively charged. We now know that these observations of Forbush were
the first time energetic particles from the Sun had been detected.
The second remarkable discovery was that following the magnetic storm the
galactic cosmic ray intensity took several days to recover to near the pre-event level.
An example from a solar flare on 25 July 1946 is shown in Fig. 1.2. The decrease in
the cosmic ray intensity following the passage of a coronal mass ejection (CME)
which envelops the Earth is called a Forbush Decrease. We now know that the
1.1 Historical Background 3

Fig. 1.2 The increase of solar energetic particles from a solar flare on July 25, 1946 as seen by
a neutron monitor at ground level at Cheltenham, MD. Just over a day later there was a magnetic
commencement, followed after a few hours by a rapid decrease in the high energy cosmic rays
(after Forbush 1946)

plasma cloud which is the CME continues out into the heliosphere taking with it
the embedded magnetic field. As it does so, the magnetic field continues to scatter
incoming cosmic rays which is why the recovery phase is so long.
Chapman and Ferraro (1930) were the first to realise that magnetic storms
were probably caused by a neutral plasma cloud emitted by the Sun hitting the
magnetosphere. If we consider the whole heliosphere, the high energy galactic
cosmic rays are incident from all directions. Particles coming in at the edge of the
heliosphere at, say, 100 AU, will be affected not only by the CMEs which hit the
Earth, but most CMEs emitted by the Sun. This is indeed the case, and it results in
an anticorrelation of the cosmic ray intensity with the sunspot number, which may
be regarded as a proxy for the CME rate. Figure 1.3 illustrates this anticorrelation
for the last five solar cycles. The solar wind carries the solar magnetic field out
through the heliosphere and it is customary to recognize that the 11-year solar
cycle is actually a 22-year cycle, as the polarity of the magnetic field reverses every
11 years. This is recognised in Fig. 1.3 where times when the solar magnetic field
in the northern hemisphere is directed inward are labelled AC and vice-versa. Also
shown in Fig. 1.3 is the tilt angle of the heliospheric current sheet which marks the
4 1 Introduction

Fig. 1.3 (a) The galactic cosmic ray intensity measured by the Kiel neutron monitor. (b) The
monthly sunspot number and tilt angle of the heliospheric current sheet AC and (A) are times
when the solar magnetic field is pointing inward (outward) from the Sun in the northern hemisphere
and outward (inward) in the southern hemisphere (after Heber et al. 2006)

interface between inward and outward magnetic field. The current sheet is tilted to
reflect the offset between the Sun’s rotational and magnetic axes and varies between
a low value during solar minimum to a large angle at solar maximum (Hoeksema
1995).
Since the pioneering measurements by Forbush (1946) the Galactic Cosmic Rays
(GCR) have been studied in great detail. Figure 1.4 shows the differential energy
spectra of protons and other nuclei out to around 10 GeV/nuc (Simpson 1983).
Above 1 GeV/nuc the spectra have the form given by Eq. (1.2):

dJ=dE D AE (1.2)

Here J is the intensity at kinetic energy E and A is a constant. The spectral index  is
2.8 above 1 GeV/nuc. and this is true for all elements in so far as the data is available.
The proton spectrum has been measured out to over 1020 eV. This is made possible
through the development of ground-level extensive air shower technology where
the particles reaching ground level, produced by the interaction of highly energetic
protons in the upper atmosphere are analysed to yield the energy of the incoming
particle. The largest detector arrays cover an area 100 km2 .
Before the advent of satellites to carry charged particle detectors into space it
was not known whether the cosmic rays had an energetic electron component. It
was suspected that any energetic electrons present in the Earth’s atmosphere were
probably accelerated in the electric fields of thunderstorms (Wilson 1925). The first
detection of cosmic ray electrons came in 1961 when Earl (1961) and Meyer and
Vogt (1961) detected highly relativistic electrons from independent high altitude
balloon flights. Since then the electron spectrum has also been measured and it
1.1 Historical Background 5

Fig. 1.4 The differential

energy spectrum of the
proton, He, C and Fe nuclei in
the galactic cosmic rays
reaching the Earth (after
Simpson 1983)

is plotted in Fig. 1.5. The electron intensity above 1 MeV is around 0.5 % of
the protons. The inverse Compton effect and magnetic bremsstrahlung remove any
electrons above 1012 eV.
The spectra have a peak at several 100 MeV/nuc. which reflects the modulation
of the GCR by the plasma emitted from the Sun. Below 10 MeV the spectra start
to increase, which simply reflects the production of energetic particles emitted by
the Sun which are nearly always present at some level at 1 AU.
The early work had a specific goal, which was elementary particle physics.
Before the advent of energetic particle accelerators the highest energy particles
which could be found were in the cosmic rays. Powell et al. (1959) developed a
technique whereby they flew a stack of photographic emulsions to high altitude
where the incoming cosmic ray protons—for the cosmic rays are dominated by
6 1 Introduction

1010

108

106
INTERPLANETARY
104
ELECTRONS

QUIET - TIME
102 OBSERVATIONS
EXCEPT FOR
INTENSITY (ELECTRONS) CM–2 SEC–1 SR–1 keV–1)

100

10–2

10–4

10–6

10–8

10–10

10–12

10–14

10–16
I eV I keV I MeV I GeV I TeV
ENERGY

Fig. 1.5 The quiet-time differential energy spectrum of electrons from solar wind energies to
1 TeV. The dashed line indicates a 1.5 105 K Maxwellian (after Lin 1974)
1.2 The First Energetic Particle Observations Outside the Magnetosphere 7

protons—interacted within the emulsion stack, leaving behind, subject to careful

photographic developing, a record of the interaction. Powell was awarded the Nobel
prize for this work.

1.2 The First Energetic Particle Observations Outside

the Magnetosphere

In the 1950s research into the origin and nature of cosmic rays took place mainly
through very high altitude balloon flights, which typically reached altitudes up
to 40 km. There were also rocket flights, but these were of short duration. The
breakthrough came in 1958 when the first research satellites were launched. One
of the early results was the discovery by Van Allen and colleagues of the Earth’s
radiation belts. The first satellites stayed mainly inside the magnetosphere. It took
a few years to develop the capability to make observations with good energy
resolution in interplanetary space. One of the first instruments to make quantitative
measurements of the radiation they detected was flown on the Explorer-12 satellite,
launched on 16 August, 1961. This carried a detector designed to measure the
intensity and energy spectrum of cosmic ray protons in the range 100–600 MeV
(Bryant et al. 1962). If the incident proton intensity was high enough, the lower
energy cut-off was 2 MeV. Explorer-12 spent over half its time outside the
magnetosphere. On 28 September 1961 a major solar flare occurred and fortunately
the spacecraft was near apogee when the first flare particles arrived. Figure 1.6
shows the intensity of protons of various energies from 28 September to 7 October,
1961. In the intervening half-century after 1961 many more events like this have
been studied. Bryant et al. referred to the “plasma cloud” that was thought to be
responsible for the magnetic sudden commencement (SC in Fig. 1.6). We now refer
to this as a CME. The consensus at the time was that the intense spike seen in the
low energy protons (top panel in Fig. 1.6) represented particles trapped within the
CME. This has become controversial and we will discuss it in more detail later.
Note that the intensity spike seen at low energies appears to be just visible in the
200–300 MeV energy band. This is probably the result of pulse pile-up, as modern
instruments do not detect particles of this energy within the CME.
Bryant et al. were fortunate that Explorer-12 was in interplanetary space, outside
the magnetosphere, when the CME hit. It is interesting that with the first space
observation of a major solar flare/CME they concluded the following:
(1) There were two short increases, 10 min duration, observed several hours
before the flare, which they interpreted as energetic (few hundred keV) elec-
trons. Formally the first actual measurements of solar electrons in space were
made by Van Allen and Krimigis (1965) on Mariner-4 in 1965.
(2) They made measurements within a CME which they supposed had 2–15 MeV
protons trapped inside.
8 1 Introduction

Fig. 1.6 The energetic

proton intensity-time history PRE–FLARE LEVELS
following the solar flare in 106
September 1961 (see text)
(after Bryant et al. 1962)
PROTONS
105
9–14 MEV

4
10

103

105

PROTONS > 30 MEV

104
PARTICLES/M- SEC. STER.

104

PROTONS
103 200—300 MEV

102

104
PROTONS > 600 MEV

103

DEEP RIVER
102 NEUTRONS
DECREASE

0
5
7°

3+ FLARE SC

28 29 30 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
SEPT. OCT.
1961
1.2 The First Energetic Particle Observations Outside the Magnetosphere 9

(3) They pointed out that the 100–600 MeV protons came along field lines probably
connecting back to 55ı west on the solar disc, while the arrival direction of
the bulk of the low energy protons was different. The 100–600 MeV protons
were approximately isotropic, which suggests that they had filled up the inner
heliosphere via back-scattering beyond 1 AU. This concept was the explanation
for the neutron monitor data from the major flare on 23 February 1956 (Meyer,
Parker and Simpson 1956).
(4) They also considered the possibility that flare protons were trapped “in the close
vicinity of the Sun”, i.e. the corona, and later migrated to the west to be released
onto magnetic field lines connected to the Earth.
(5) The CME took 46 h to reach the Earth.
(6) The flare occurred at 29ı east of central meridian on the visible solar disc and
did not produce a ground-level response in neutron monitors, unlike major flares
which were near the solar west limb.
In conclusion, the study of energetic particles in the heliosphere has now been
going on for over 50 years. The instruments used for this work have become
incredibly sophisticated as we show in Chap. 2. Spacecraft have now explored, near
the ecliptic plane, beyond the edge of the heliosphere. All the planets from Mercury
to Saturn have had spacecraft orbiting them. But the only one to explore the third
dimension has been Ulysses, launched in October, 1990, which went, via Jupiter,
into a polar (80ı inclination) orbit around the Sun. The orbit period was 6.2 years
and it finally was turned off at the end of June, 2009.
In the 1940s it was widely believed that space was a vacuum and that the Sun only
emitted a radiation spectrum peaked in the optical region. The ideas of Chapman
and Ferraro and Forbush were not given prominence. The solar wind was unknown
and the cosmic rays were probably protons. Energetic cosmic ray electrons were
first discovered using balloon flights in 1961 while solar electrons, as we have seen,
were identified in 1965. The breakthrough came with Parker’s successful theoretical
prediction of the solar wind (Parker 1958), which is a neutral, fast-moving, low-ˇ 1
plasma stream. The solar wind carried with it a large amount of energy, and because
the velocity was not constant, whenever fast streams overtook slow streams, there
was the potential for energetic particle acceleration.
Data gathered from the many spacecraft that have been operational over the
last half-century have identified the Sun as the main, but not the only, source
of energetic particles. The Sun generates CMEs which often drive interplanetary
shocks. The extent to which these accelerate energetic particles is controversial.
The outer heliosphere is the source of the Anomalous Cosmic Rays (ACR), while
the giant gas planets also play their part. The ultimate goal of this research is to find

1
ˇ D plasma pressure/magnetic pressure.
10 1 Introduction

the acceleration mechanisms which are involved; and how, when and where they
operate. The only stellar system where we can make in situ measurements is our
own, so getting it right is important for understanding what is happening in the rest
of the Galaxy, and beyond.

References

D.A. Bryant et al., J. Geophys. Res. 67, 4983 (1962)

S. Chapman, V.C.A. Ferraro, Nature 126 (1930)
A.H. Compton, E.O. Wollem, R.D. Bennett, Rev. Sci. Inst. 5, 415 (1934)
J.A. Earl, Phys. Rev. Lett. 6, 125 (1961)
S.E. Forbush, Phys. Rev. 70, 771 (1946)
B. Heber et al., Space Sci. Rev. 125, 81 (2006)
J. Hoeksema, Space Sci. Rev. 72, 137 (1995)
R.P. Lin, Space Sci. Rev. 16, 189 (1974)
P. Meyer, R. Vogt, Phys. Rev. Lett. 6, 193 (1961)
P. Meyer, E.N. Parker, J.A. Simpson, Phys. Rev. 104, 768 (1956)
E.N. Parker, Astrophys. J. 128, 664 (1958)
C.F. Powell et al., The Study of Elementary Particles by the Photographic Method (Pergamon Press,
New York, 1959)
J.A. Simpson, Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 33, 323 (1983)
J.A. Simpson, W. Fonger, S.B. Treiman, Phys. Rev. 90, 934 (1953)
J.A. Van Allen, S.M. Krimigis, J. Geophys. Res. 70, 5737 (1965)
C.T.R. Wilson, Proc. Camb. Soc. 22, 534 (1925)
Chapter 2
Instrumentation

2.1 Introduction

The information we use to develop our ideas primarily comes from a variety of
instruments which have been flown on both spinning and spin-stabilized spacecraft.
It is supplemented with data from ground-based telescopes, generally those which
are viewing the Sun directly and we will not discuss these further. The space-based
instruments are those which measure the kinematic properties of space plasmas
and those which measure individual energetic particles. The plasma instruments are
typically electrostatic analysers which monitor the plasma by stepping a sweeping
voltage from a few volts to tens of kilovolts. Such instruments monitor both elec-
trons and ions. Another important instrument is the magnetometer, which generally
measures the magnitude of the interplanetary magnetic field at the spacecraft in
three mutually orthogonal axes.
One of the most widely used components is the silicon solid-state detector,
which is essentially a p–n junction diode with a high voltage applied in the
reverse direction across it to fully deplete the body of the detector between the
junctions. The detectors are typically circular, with areas of up to around 10 cm2
and thicknesses which range from around 100 m to several mm. There is a dead
layer of oxide, typically 100–200 nm, on the surface which protects the Si surface
from contamination and mechanical damage. A dead layer of 100 nm is sufficient to
stop protons of around 30 keV and therefore this is the effective lower energy cut-off
for these detectors. When a charged particle passes through the detector, electron-
ion pairs are produced and the electrons drift under the action of the applied voltage
across the detector to be detected as a short electrical pulse. To a good approximation
the amplitude of the pulse is proportional to the energy lost by the charged particle.
If electrons are to be detected, at low energies scattering is important and must be
corrected for if quantitative inferences are to be made from the data.

© Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2017 11

G.M. Simnett, Energetic Particles in the Heliosphere, Astrophysics and Space
Science Library 438, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-43495-7_2
12 2 Instrumentation

An ingenious use of solid-state detectors is to place two circular detectors, say

A and B, one behind the other with a separation which will define the geometrical
factor. The combination defines a conical opening angle for which an effective solid
angle/geometrical factor (in units of cm2  steradian) may be calculated. It is then
possible to operate the detectors in coincidence, so that three types of particle may
be detected. The most ambiguous are those particles which trigger both detectors A
and B, which correspond to any high energy particle which penetrates both, together
with those that stop in the second detector. However, those that trigger just one
detector must therefore have stopped in that detector, scattering notwithstanding.
The logic condition is then normally written as: AB or AB.
An instrument which exploited this technique was the Heliosphere Instrument
for Spectrum, Composition and Anisotropy at Low Energies (HI-SCALE) flown on
the spinning Ulysses mission which was operational between November 1990 and
June 2009. One of the multi-head detectors is shown in Fig. 2.1. There is a 2-element
telescope with circular 200 m thick detectors identified as F and M, located behind
two collimators giving an unrestricted opening angle of just over 50ı in each look
direction. In one look direction the front detector (F) is covered by a thin foil, whose
purpose is to absorb ions below around 350 keV/nucleon (hereinafter keV/nuc). The

4 4
ENERGY LOSS IN K1 (MeV)

10 10
ENERGY LOSS IN K1 (MeV)

3 3
10 10
TRAJECTORY−CORRECTED

ULYSSES
COSPIN HET
UNIVERSITY
1990: 296−365 OF CHICAGO
2 1991: 1−41, 49−55
10 2
10
2 3 4 2 3 4
10 10 10 10 10 10
ENERGY LOSS IN K2−K6 (MeV)

Fig. 2.1 One of the solid-state detector multi-head telescopes flown on the Ulysses mission. There
are five solid-state detectors shown, labelled B, C, D, F and M (see text) (after Lanzerotti et al.
1992)
2.1 Introduction 13

range-energy relationship for ions passing through Si is highly non-linear at low

energies such that most ions with enough energy to penetrate the foil also have
enough energy to completely pass through the F detector. The other detector (M) is
located behind a magnet which is strong enough to deflect electrons which otherwise
would stop in the detector M into the back 200 m thick detector B of a separate
three-element telescope (Elements B, C and D). The more massive ions which are
in the energy range to stop in detector M are relatively unaffected by the magnetic
field, while electrons which are energetic enough to pass through the magnet without
too much deflection also have enough energy to pass right through detector M into
detector F.
Therefore to a good approximation events which satisfy the logic condition FM
are electrons, up to the energy of 300 keV when the electrons pass right through
the F detector and trigger the M detector. At around this energy the ions take over,
as they are no longer stopped in the foil, up to the energy that they too pass through
the F detector and trigger M. Thus there is a slight ambiguity at the energy boundary
with a response from both ions and electrons.
In the other direction events which satisfy the logic condition MF are ions.
The energy resolution of the measurements is typically limited by the available
spacecraft telemetry. The three element telescope has two functions. Events which
satisfy the logic condition BC are primarily electrons which have been swept into
the B detector by the magnet. Events which are caused by particles entering through
the 45ı collimator (Fig. 2.1) are required to satisfy the logic condition DCB. Thus
they are particles which pass through the 5 m thick detector D and stop in the
200 m detector C.
Such particles lose energy according to their range-energy relationship in
detector D, and the energy loss may be written as dE/dx integrated over the thickness
ıx of the detector. This is normally written as dE. For particles which stop in detector
C, the energy deposited is the initial energy E of the particle, minus that lost in
detector D, namely dE. If a plot of dE versus (E  dE) is made, the range-energy
relationships for ions result in a locus for each ion, which is discussed below.
An extension to the principle of the three-element telescope just described is
the multi-stack detector. A good example of this technology is the High Energy
Telescope (HET) of the Cosmic Ray and Solar Particle Investigation (COSPIN)
which was flown on the Ulysses spacecraft. Figure 2.2 shows a schematic view of
the HET. This instrument benefits from a track identification system made up of
two sets of three linear position sensitive detectors mounted at 60ı to each other, as
shown in Fig. 2.2. The summed outputs of these six detectors gives the energy dE.
Particles which stop in the detector stack K1–K6 can be identified provided that they
do not exit the stack sideways, in which case they would trigger the guard counter
S, or exit through the bottom, in which case they would trigger detector A. The
sum of the outputs of detectors K1–K6 is (E  dE). The thicknesses of the detectors
are given in Fig. 2.2. The advantage of the track identification is that the outputs of
the D detectors may be normalised to correspond to the energy loss from a particle
coming in at normal incidence; and therefore the residual energy may similarly be
corrected.
14 2 Instrumentation

Fig. 2.2 The High Energy Telescope of the COSPIN instrument (see text) (after Simpson et al.
1992)

This type of detector is ideal for measuring the elemental and isotopic composi-
tion of solar particle events. Figure 2.3 shows a matrix plot of dE versus (E  dE) for
a typical event. A dot represents the energy parameters from a single particle. The
left panel (A) shows the matrix uncorrected for the trajectory, and the right panel (B)
shows the same data following correction. The advantage of the track identification
is readily apparent. The curves correspond to specific nuclei, in this instance from C
to Fe. Detectors have been flown which can identify individual isotopes, especially
for the light elements and also go up to masses in excess of 200 atomic mass units
(amu).
A technique that we have not discussed yet is that of using the particle velocity
as an additional parameter to be monitored. In practice there are two possibilities.
The first is to use an element such as a Cerenkov detector to select only relativistic
particles. This is especially useful for measuring electrons above a few MeV in the
presence of a high background of other particles. A Cerenkov detector produces a
light signal if the velocity of the particle exceeds the velocity of light in the detector
medium. If glass is used, with a refractive index, n, of 1.5, then the Cerenkov
threshold is a velocity of c/n D 0.67c, where c is the velocity of light. However,
pressurised gas may be used as the Cerenkov medium. Thus if the refractive index
of the gas is, say, 1.005, then the Cerenkov threshold is 0.995c. This is the velocity
of a 5 MeV electron.
There is a disadvantage in employing a gas detector in a spacecraft, as over a
long mission such as Ulysses the gas might leak out. This was overcome in the Kiel
2.1 Introduction 15

Foil F M

LEFS150 LEMS30

Magnet
53° look angle 51° look angle

B
D
C
CA60

0 5
45° look angle
cm

Fig. 2.3 An example of a solar particle event from the HET (see Fig. 2.2). Plotted is the energy
loss in the thin position-sensitive detectors (dE) versus the residual energy lost by the ion as it
stops in the thick detector stack (E  dE). The left panel (a) shows the raw data and the right panel
(b) the data after the trajectory correction has been made (after Simpson et al. 1992)

Electron Telescope (KET) which is part of the COSPIN instrument suite (Simpson
et al. 1992). A schematic view of the KET is shown in Fig. 2.4. The detector element
C1 is a solid block of silica aerogel, which has a refractive index of 1.066. The light
signal from C1 is viewed by a photomultiplier tube PM1 through a hole in the guard
counter A. In flight the KET measures electrons from a few MeV to several GeV.
The second way of exploiting velocity is to measure the time-of-flight of
the particle between two detecting elements and for instruments which can be
accommodated on a typical spacecraft this is most useful for detecting particles
of relatively low velocity. One such instrument is the Ultra Low Energy Isotope
Spectrometer (ULEIS) which is currently flying on the ACE spacecraft. Figure 2.5
shows a schematic view of ULEIS. This is designed to study elements from He to
Ni with energies between around 45 keV/nuc to a few MeV/nuc.
In this instrument the measurement technique is as follows. The incident ion
passes through thin foils and in so doing emits secondary electrons which are
accelerated to around 1 keV and deflected onto microchannel plates by electrostatic
mirrors. There are two sets of microchannel plates which provide (redundant) start
pulses for the time-of-flight measurement, and a single set of microchannel plates
16 2 Instrumentation

44˚

Aperture foil 50μ AI

A
D1 S1

PM 1

PM 4
C1

D2

C2 S2

D1 Semiconductor
DB 1mm/ 750mm2
PM 2
C1 Silica Aerogel
n = 1.066; d = 0.26g/cm3
D2 Semiconductor
1mm / 500 mm2
C2 Lead Fluoride (Pb F2)
2.5r.L.; d = 7.7g /cm3; n = 1.885
PM 3 S1 Fast Scintillator (Plastic)
SPFφ 40mm. 1 mm thick
A.S2 Fast Scintillator (Plastic)
NE 104
1cm DB Diffusion box for C2

Fig. 2.4 A schematic view of the relativistic electron detector on Ulysses (after Simpson et al.
1992)

to provide the stop pulse. The electron-emitting foils are represented by horizontal
lines in Fig. 2.5. The residual energy of the ion is measured by a stack of seven
solid state detectors at the back of the instrument. As the total energy of the ion is
measured as well as its velocity, it is then straightforward to determine the mass.
Thus ULEIS works very well as a time-of-flight mass spectrometer. However, as
pointed out by Mason et al. (1998) it is unable to distinguish between isomers.
The most ambitious mission ever flown is that of the Voyagers. The two Voyager
spacecraft were launched in 1977 and they used gravity assist from the outer
planets to enable them to reached the interstellar medium (see Chap. 9). Figure
2.6 is a schematic view of the cosmic ray instrument package. This has a high
energy telescope (HET), a low energy telescope (LET) and an electron telescope
(TET). The HET measures the differential energy spectrum of electrons and ions
from hydrogen to iron over a broad range of energies. For protons this is from 4–
500 MeV and for iron it is 2.5–500 MeV/nuc. For electrons the energy spectrum is
measured from 3–10 MeV. There are two complete HET telescopes with almost
orthogonal viewing directions. The LET measures hydrogen and helium nuclei
from 3–8.4 MeV/nuc and elements from atomic number 3–26 over an energy range
2.1 Introduction 17

ULEIS Telescope Cross Section

Typical
Ion Path

Sunshade
Sliding Iris
(partly Open)

Entrance harp
Thin
Foil Accelerating
Harp

Position-sensing
Anode

Start #1
Start #2 Typical Secondary
Electron Path

0 5 10

Scale (cm)

Stop MCPs

Electrostatic
Position-sensing Mirror
Anode

Solid State
Detector Array

Fig. 2.5 A schematic view of ULEIS (see text) (after Mason et al. 1998)

6–20 MeV/nuc. The electron energy spectrometer (TET) measures the electron
spectrum from 5–110 MeV. The detectors are all silicon solid state. A complete
description of the instrument may be found in Stone et al. (1977). The detectors
need to function flawlessly for four decades if the mission is to achieve its objectives
18 2 Instrumentation

Fig. 2.6 A schematic view of the cosmic ray instrument package on the two Voyager spacecraft
(after Stone et al. 1977)

and give us information about the local interstellar medium. Voyager-1 has now
made it out of the heliosphere (see Chap. 9) and data from these instruments are still
coming in.
With these examples we have illustrated how charged particle detectors are able
to measure the energy spectrum, elemental and isotopic composition of the particle
environment in the interplanetary medium. Instruments using similar detectors may
also measure electrons from solar wind energies up to the relativistic regime. If the
instruments are on a spinning spacecraft then by dividing the data into sectors of
the spin, it is possible to determine the anisotropy of the particles also. On a 3-axis
stabilised spacecraft anisotropy measurements may be achieved by having multiple
detectors looking in different directions. Variations on the designs discussed above
can provide data up to several hundred MeV/nuc.
The detectors on Ulysses are all relatively light and do not consume much
power. Thus the instrument designers have to be ingenious in order to maximise
the return for the weight and power they have been allocated. More recently it
has been possible to have much heavier instruments which are able to measure the
energetic particles out to hundreds of GeV. Figure 2.7 is a schematic view of the
PAMELA instrument (Picozza et al. 2007) which was launched on 15 June, 2006
on the Russian Resurs DK1 satellite into an elliptical Earth orbit with an inclination
of 70ı . PAMELA is designed to study charged particles out to 500 GeV using
time-of-flight techniques and a calorimeter for measuring the total energy of the
particle. It has a mass of 470 kg and has an average power consumption of 355 W.
The primary goal of the instrument is to measure antimatter in the cosmic rays and
to this end a magnetic spectrometer with a magnetic field of 0.43 T is a crucial part
of the payload. PAMELA observed particles responsible for the ground level event
on 13 December 2006, up to 3 GeV=nuc.
2.1 Introduction 19

Fig. 2.7 A schematic view of the PAMELA instrument (Picozza et al. 2007)

What can be done from the ground? Below a few hundred MeV the atmosphere
absorbs most of the secondary particles resulting from interactions of the incident
particle. The neutron monitor (Simpson et al. 1953 and Chap. 1) responds to nuclei,
which are mainly protons, incident at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere with kinetic
energies above around 1 GeV as well as heavier nuclei of similar velocities. The
incident proton undergoes a nuclear interaction with an air nucleus, following which
an air shower of particles is produced, some of which reach the ground. Of the
shower particles, those which are strongly-interacting produce a multiplicity of
secondary neutrons in the neutron monitor. These are then detected by proportional
counters loaded with 10 BF3 gas, which absorbs neutrons to produce 11 B, which
decays to 7 Li and an ˛-particle. There is a network of neutron monitors around
the Earth, which acts as a magnetic spectrometer, so that the energy spectrum and
anisotropy of high energy solar particle events may be measured. Such events occur
above the neutron monitor threshold somewhat more than once a year.
Incident energetic particles interact in the Earth’s atmosphere and generate a
shower of electrons, muons and  -rays. If all the particles reaching the ground could
be detected it would be passible to calculate the energy of the incident particle
responsible for the shower. This would be impractical, but the next best thing is
to sample the shower over a wide area and extrapolate back to the top of the
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
to one of his “Fabliaux.” A sinner lies dying, and an angel and a
fiend, after disputing the right to his soul, agree to settle the affair by
a throw of dice. The fiend gets the first chance, and the fatal cubes
come up—two sixes! He chuckles and rubs his claws, for everybody
knows that no higher number is possible. But the angel thinks
otherwise, throws, and, behold, a six and seven! And thus it is, that
when the understanding has done its best, when it has reached, as it
thinks, down to the last secret of music and meaning that language
is capable of, the poetical sense comes in with its careless miracle,
and gets one more point than there are in the dice.

Imagination is not necessarily concerned with poetic expression.

Nothing can be more poetical than the lines of Henry More the
Platonist:

What doth move

The nightingale to sing so fresh and clear?
The thrush or lark, that mounting high above,
Chants her shrill notes to heedless ears of corn,
Heavily hanging in the dewy morn.

But compare it with Keats’

Ruth, when sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn.

The imagination has touched that word “alien,” and in it we see the
field through Ruth’s eyes, as she looked round on the hostile spikes,
and not through those of the poet.

Imagination enters more or less into the composition of all great

minds, all minds that have what we call breadth as distinguished
from mere force or acuteness. We find it in philosophers like Plato
and Bacon, in discoverers like Kepler and Newton, in fanatics like
George Fox, and in reformers like Luther.
The shape which the imaginative faculty will take is modified by the
force of the other qualities with which it is coördinated in the mind. If
the moral sense predominates, the man becomes a reformer, or a
fanatic, and his imagination gets itself uttered in his life. Bunyan
would have been nothing but a fanatic, if he had not been luckily
shut up in Bedford jail, alone with his imagination, which, unable to
find vent in any other way, possessed and tortured him till it had
wrung the “Pilgrim’s Progress” out of him—a book the nearest to a
poem, without being one, that ever was written. Uniting itself with the
sense of form, Imagination makes a sculptor; with those of form and
color, a painter; with those of time and tune, a musician. For in itself
it is dumb, and can find expression only through the help of some
other faculty.

Imagination plus the poetic sense is poesy, minus the poetic sense it
is science, though it may clothe itself in verse. To those who are
familiar with Dr. Donne’s verses, I need only mention his name as a
proof of my last position. He solves problems in rhyme, that is all.

Shakspeare was so charged with the highest form of the poetic

imagination, as some persons are with electricity, that he could not
point his finger at a word without a spark of it going out of him. I will
illustrate it by an example taken at random from him. When Romeo
is parting from Juliet, Shakspeare first projects his own mind into
Romeo, and then, as Romeo becomes so possessed with the
emotion of the moment that his words take color from it, all nature is
infected and is full of partings. He says:

But look what envious streaks

Do lace the severing clouds.

Shakspeare’s one hundred and thirteenth sonnet was here also

quoted in illustration.

The highest form of imagination, Mr. Lowell said, is the dramatic, of

which Shakspeare must always stand for the only definition. Next is
the narrative imagination, where the poet forces his own personal
consciousness upon us and makes our senses the slaves of his
own. Of this kind Dante’s “Divina Commedia” is the type. Below this
are the poems in which the imagination is more diffused; where the
impression we receive is rather from mass than from particulars;
where single lines are not so strong in themselves as in forming
integral portions of great sweeps of verse; where effects are
produced by allusion and suggestion, by sonorousness, by the use
of names which have a traditional poetic value. Of this kind Milton is
the type.

Lastly, said Mr. Lowell, I would place in a class by themselves those

poets who have properly no imagination at all, but only a pictorial
power. These we may call the imaginary poets, writers who give us
images of things that neither they nor we believe in or can be
deceived by, like pictures from a magic lantern. Of this kind are the
Oriental poems of Southey, which show a knowledge of Asiatic
mythologies, but are not livingly mythologic.

Where the imagination is found in combination with great acuteness

of intellect, we have its secondary or prose form. Lord Bacon is an
example of it. Sir Thomas Browne is a still more remarkable one—a
man who gives proof of more imagination than any other Englishman
except Shakspeare.

Fancy is a frailer quality than Imagination, and cannot breathe the

difficult air of the higher regions of intuition. In combination with
Sentiment it produces poetry; with Experience, wit. The poetical
faculty is in closer affinity with Imagination; the poetical temperament
with Fancy. Contrast Milton with Herrick or Moore. In illustration Mr.
Lowell quoted from Marvell, the poet of all others whose fancy hints
always at something beyond itself, and whose wit seems to have
been fed on the strong meat of humor.

As regards man, Fancy takes delight in life, manners, and the result
of culture, in what may be called Scenery; Imagination is that
mysterious something which we call Nature—the unfathomed base
on which Scenery rests and is sustained. Fancy deals with feeling;
Imagination with passion. I have sometimes thought that
Shakspeare, in the scene of the “Tempest,” intended to typify the isle
of Man, and in the characters, some of the leading qualities or
passions which dwell in it. It is not hard to find the Imagination in
Prospero, the Fancy in Ariel, and the Understanding in Caliban; and,
as he himself was the poetic imagination incarnated, is it considering
too nicely to think that there is a profound personal allusion in the
breaking of Prospero’s wand and the burying of his book to the
nature of that man who, after such thaumaturgy, could go down to
Stratford and live there for years, only collecting his dividends from
the Globe Theatre, lending money on mortgage, and leaning over
the gate to chat and chaffer with his neighbors?

I think that every man is conscious at times that it is only his borders,
his seaboard, that is civilized and subdued. Behind that narrow strip
stretches the untamed domain, shaggy, unexplored, of the natural
instincts. Is not this so? Then we can narrow our definition yet
farther, and say that Fancy and Wit appear to the artificial man;
Imagination and Humor to the natural man. Thus each of us in his
dual capacity can at once like Chaucer and Pope, Butler and Jean
Paul, and bury the hatchet of one war of tastes.

And now, finally, what is the secret of the great poet’s power over
us? There is something we love better than love, something that is
sweeter to us than riches, something that is more inspiring to us than
success—and that is the imagination of them. No woman was ever
loved enough, no miser was ever rich enough, no ambitious man
ever successful enough, but in imagination. Every desire of the heart
finds its gratification in the poet because he speaks always
imaginatively and satisfies ideal hungers. We are the always-
welcome guests of his ennobling words.

This, then, is why the poet has always been held in reverence
among men. All nature is dumb, and we men have mostly but a
stunted and stuttering speech. But the longing of every created thing
is for utterance and expression. The Poet’s office, whether we call
him Seer, Prophet, Maker, or Namer, is always this—to be the Voice
of this lower world. Through him, man and nature find at last a
tongue by which they can utter themselves and speak to each other.
The beauties of the visible world, the trembling attractions of the
invisible, the hopes and desires of the heart, the aspirations of the
soul, the passions and the charities of men; nay, the trees, the rocks,
our poor old speechless mother, the earth herself, become voice and
music, and attain to that humanity, a divine instinct of which is
implanted in them all.
 LECTURE II
PIERS PLOUGHMAN’S VISION

(Friday Evening, January 12, 1855)

II
In literature, as in religion and politics, there is a class of men who
may be called Fore-runners. As there were brave men before
Agamemnon, so there must have been brave poets before Homer.
All of us, the great as well as the little, are the result of the entire
Past. It is but just that we should remember now and then that the
very dust in the beaten highways of thought is that of perhaps
nameless saints and heroes who thought and suffered and died to
make commonplace practicable to us. Men went to the scaffold or
the stake for ideas and principles which we set up in our writings and
our talk as thoughtlessly as a printer sticks his type, and the country
editor, when he wrote his last diatribe on the freedom of the press,
dipped his pen without knowing it in the blood of the martyrs. It would
be well for us to remember, now and then, our dusty benefactors,
and to be conscious that we are under bonds to the Present to the
precise amount that we are indebted to the Past.

Thus, from one point of view, there is nothing more saddening than a
biographical dictionary. It is like a graveyard of might-have-beens
and used-to-be’s, of fames that never ripened and of fames already
decayed. Here lies the great Thinker who stammered and could not
find the best word for his best thought, and so the fame went to
some other who had the gift of tongues. Here lies the gatherer of
great masses of learning from which another was to distil the
essence, and to get his name upon all the phials and show-bills. But
if these neglected headstones preach the vanity of a selfish
ambition, they teach also the better lesson that every man’s activity
belongs not to himself but to his kind, and whether he will or not
must serve at last some other, greater man. We are all foot-soldiers,
and it is out of the blood of a whole army of us that iron enough is
extracted to make the commemorative sword that is voted to the
great Captain.

In that long aqueduct which brings the water of life down to us from
its far sources in the Past, though many have done honest day-labor
in building it, yet the keystone that unites the arch of every period is
engraved with the name of the greatest man alone. These are our
landmarks, and mentally we measure by these rather than by any
scheme of Chronology. If we think of Philosophy, we think of four or
five great names, and so of Poetry, Astronomy, and the rest. Geology
may give what age she will to the globe; it matters not, it will still be
only so many great men old; and wanting these, it is in vain that
Egypt and Assyria show us their long bead-roll of vacant centuries. It
is in the life of its great men that the life and thought of a people
becomes statuesque, rises into poetry, and makes itself sound out
clearly in rhythm and harmony.

These great persons get all the fame and all the monuments like the
generals of armies, though we may lead the forlorn hope, or make a
palpitating bridge with our bodies in the trenches. Rank and file may
grumble a little—but it is always so, and always must be so. Fame
would not be fame if it were or could be divided infinitesimally, and
every man get his drachm and scruple. It is good for nothing unless it
come in a lump. And besides, if every man got a monument or an
epitaph who felt quite sure he deserved it, would marble hold out, or
Latin?

The fame of a great poet is made up of the sum of all the

appreciations of many succeeding generations, each of which he
touches at some one point. He is like a New World into which
explorer after explorer enters, one to botanize, one to geologize, one
to ethnologize, and each bringing back his report. His great snowy
mountains perhaps only one man in a century goes to the top of and
comes back to tell us how he saw from them at once the two great
oceans of Life and Death, the Atlantic out of which we came, the
Pacific toward which we tend.

Of the poet we do not ask everything, but the best expression of the
best of everything. If a man attain this but once, though only in a frail
song, he is immortal; while every one who falls just short of it, if only
by a hair’s breadth, is as sure to be forgotten. There is a wonderful
secret that poets have not yet learned, and this is that small men
cannot do great things, but that the small man who can do small
things best is great. The most fatal ill-success is to almost succeed,
as, in Italy, the worst lemons are those large ones which come
nearest to being oranges. The secret of permanent fame is to
express some idea the most compactly, whether in your life, your
deed, or your writing. I think that if anything is clear in history, it is
that every idea, whether in morals, politics, or art, which is laboring
to express itself, feels of many men and throws them aside before it
finds the one in whom it can incarnate itself. The noble idea of the
Papacy (for it was a noble one—nothing less than the attempt to
embody the higher law in a human institution) whispered itself to
many before it got the man it wanted in Gregory the Great. And
Protestantism carried numbers to the stake ere it entered into Luther:
a man whom nature made on purpose—all asbestos so that he could
not burn. Doubtless Apollo spoiled many a reed before he found one
that would do to pipe through even to the sheep of Admetus, and the
land of song is scattered thick with reeds which the Muse has
experimented with and thrown away.

It is from such a one that I am going to try to draw a few notes of

music and of mirth to-night. Contemporary with Chaucer lived a man
who satirized the clergy and gave some lively pictures of manners
before the “Canterbury Tales” were written. His poem was very
popular, as appears from the number of manuscript copies of it
remaining, and after being forgotten for two centuries, it was revived
again, printed, widely read, and helped onward the Reformation in
England. It has been reprinted twice during the present century. This
assures us that it must have had a good deal of original force and
vivacity. It may be considered, however, to be tolerably defunct now.
This poem is the vision of Piers Ploughman.
I have no hope of reviving it. Dead poets are something very dead,
and critics blow their trumpets over them in vain. What I think is
interesting and instructive in the poem is that it illustrates in a
remarkable manner what may be considered the Anglo-Saxon
element in English poetry. I refer to race, and not to language. We
find here a vigorous common-sense, a simple and hearty love of
nature, a certain homely tenderness, held in check always by a
dogged veracity. Instead of Fancy we have Feeling; and, what more
especially deserves notice, there is almost an entire want of that
sense of form and outline and proportion which alone brings
anything within the province of Art. Imagination shows itself now and
then in little gleams and flashes, but always in the form of Humor.
For the basis of the Anglo-Saxon mind is beef and beer; what it
considers the real as distinguished from, or rather opposed to, the
ideal. It spares nothing merely because it is beautiful. It is the Anglo-
Saxon who invented the word Humbug, the potent exorcism which
lays the spirit of poetry in the Red Sea. It is he who always translates
Shows into Shams.

Properly speaking, “Piers Ploughman’s Vision” is not a poem at all. It

is a sermon rather, for no verse, the chief end of which is not the
representation of the beautiful, and whose moral is not included in
that, can be called poetry in the true sense of the word. A thought
will become poetical by being put into verse when a horse hair will
turn into a snake by being laid in water. The poetical nature will
delight in Mary Magdalen more for her fine hair than for her
penitence. But whatever is poetical in this book seems to me
characteristically Saxon. The English Muse has mixed blood in her
veins, and I think that what she gets from the Saxon is a certain
something homely and practical, a flavor of the goodwife which is
hereditary. She is the descendant on one side of Poor Richard,
inspired, it is true, but who always brings her knitting in her pocket.
The light of the soul that shines through her countenance, that “light
that never was on land or sea,” is mingled with the warm glow from
the fireside on the hearth of Home. Indeed, may it not be attributed
to the Teutonic heart as something peculiar to it, that it has breadth
enough to embrace at once the chimney-corner and the far-reaching
splendors of Heaven? Happy for it when the smoke and cookery-
steam of the one do not obscure the other!

I find no fault with the author of Piers Ploughman for not being a
poet. Every man cannot be a poet (fortunately), nor every poet a
great one. It is the privilege of the great to be always
contemporaneous, to speak of fugacious events in words that shall
be perennial. But to the poets of the second rate we go for pictures
of manners that have passed away, for transitory facts, for modes of
life and ways of thinking that were circumstantial merely. They give
us reflections of our outward, as their larger brethren do of our
inward, selves. They deal, as it were, with costume; the other with
man himself.

But these details are of interest, so fond are we of facts. We all have
seen the congregation which grew sleepy while the preacher talked
of the other world give a stir of pleased attention if he brought in a
personal anecdote about this. Books are written and printed, and we
read them to tell us how our forefathers cocked their hats, or turned
up the points of their shoes; when blacking and starch were
introduced; who among the Anglo-Saxons carried the first umbrella,
and who borrowed it.

These trifles, also, acquire importance in proportion as they are

older. If a naturalist showed us a toad, we should be indifferent, but if
he told us that it had been found in a block of granite, we should
instantly look with profound interest on a creature that perhaps ate
moths in Abel’s garden, or hopped out of the path of Lamech. And
the same precious jewel of instruction we find in the ugly little facts
embedded in early literatures. They teach us the unchangeableness
of man and his real independence of his accidents. He is the same
old lay figure under all his draperies, and sits to one artist for a John
and to another for a Judas, and serves equally well for both portraits.
The oldest fable reappears in the newest novel. Aristophanes makes
coats that fit us still. Voltaire is Lucian translated into the eighteenth
century. Augustus turns up in Louis Napoleon. The whirligig of Time
brings back at regular intervals the same actors and situations, and
under whatever names—Ormuzd and Ahriman, Protestantism and
Catholicism, Reform and Conservatism, Transcendentalism and
Realism. We see the same ancient quarrel renewed from generation
to generation, till we begin to doubt whether this be truly the steps of
a Tower of Babel that we are mounting, and not rather a treadmill,
where we get all the positive good of the exercise and none of the
theoretic ill which might come if we could once solve the problem of
getting above ourselves. Man’s life continues to be, as the Saxon
noble described it, the flight of a sparrow through a lighted hall, out
of one darkness and into another, and the two questions whence?
and whither? were no tougher to Adam than to us. The author of
Piers Ploughman’s Vision has offered us his theory of this world and
the next, and in doing so gives some curious hints of modes of life
and of thought. It is generally agreed that one of his names was
Langland, and it is disputed whether the other was Robert or William.
Robert has the most authority, and William the strongest arguments
in its favor. It is of little consequence now to him or us. He was
probably a monk at Malvern. His poem is a long one, written in the
unrhymed alliterative measure of the Anglo-Saxon poetry, and the
plan of it is of the simplest kind. It is a continued allegory, in which all
the vices, passions, and follies of the time, the powers of the mind,
the qualities of the spirit, and the theological dogmas of the author,
are personified and mixed up with real personages with so much
simplicity, and with such unconscious interfusion of actual life as to
give the whole an air of probability.

The author of Piers Ploughman’s Vision avoids any appearance of

incongruity by laying his scene in a world which is neither wholly real
nor wholly imaginary—the realm of sleep and dreams. There it does
not astonish us that Langland should meet and talk with the
theological virtues, and that very avoirdupois knights, monks, abbots,
friars, and ploughmen should be found in company with such
questionable characters as Do-well, Do-better, Do-best, Conscience,
Nature, Clergy, and Activa Vita. He has divided his poem into twenty
“steps,” as he calls them, in each of which he falls asleep, has a
dream, and wakes up when it becomes convenient or he is at a loss
what else to do. Meanwhile his real characters are so very real, and
his allegorical ones mingle with them on such a common ground of
easy familiarity, that we forget the allegory altogether. We are not
surprised to find those Utopian edifices, the Tower of Truth and the
Church of Unity, in the same street with an alehouse as genuine as
that of Tam o’ Shanter, and it would seem nothing out of the common
if we should see the twelve signs of the Zodiac saving themselves
from Deucalion’s flood in an arc of the Ecliptic.

Mr. Lowell here read long extracts from the poem, with a
commentary of his own, generally brief, of which we can give only
the following fine passage on Personification.

The truth is, that ideal personifications are commonly little better than
pinchbeck substitutes for imagination. They are a refuge which
unimaginative minds seek from their own sterile imaginativeness.
They stand in the same relation to poetry as wax figures to sculpture.
The more nearly they counterfeit reality, the more unpleasant they
are, and there is always a dejected irresponsibleness about the legs
and a Brattle street air in the boots that is ludicrous. The imagination
gives us no pictures, but the thing itself. It goes out for the moment
to dwell in and inform with its own life the object of its vision—as
Keats says somewhere in one of his letters, “I hop about the gravel
and pick up crumbs in the sparrows.” And so, in personifying, the
imagination must have energy to project its own emotion so as to
see it objectively—just as the disease of the hypochondriac runs
before him in a black dog. Thus it was that the early poets, “who
believed the wonders that they sang,” peopled the forests, floods,
and mountains with real shapes of beauty or terror; and accordingly
in primitive times ecstasy is always attributed to the condition of the
poetic mind. To the great poets these ecstasies are still possible, and
personification had its origin in the tradition of these, and the
endeavor of inferior minds to atone for their own languor by what we
may call historical or reminiscental imagination. Here is indicated the
decline from faith to ritual. Shakspeare has illustrated the true secret
of imaginative personification when he makes the conscience of
Macbeth become external and visible to him in the ghastly shape at
the banquet which he alone can see, and Lady Macbeth’s afterwards
in the blood-stain on her hand. This is the personification of the
creative mind whose thoughts are not images, but things. And this
seems to have been the normal condition of Shakspeare’s genius,
as it is the exceptional one of all other poets. He alone has
embodied in flesh and blood his every thought and fancy and
emotion, his every passion and temptation. Beside him all other
poets seem but the painters and not the makers of men. He sent out
his profound intellect to look at life from every point of view, and
through the eyes of all men and women from the highest to the
lowest. In every one he seems to have tapped it with the knuckles, to
have said sadly, Tinnit, inane est, It rings, it is hollow; and then to
have gone down quietly to wait for death and another world at
Stratford.

As fine an example as any of the prose imagination, of the intellect

acting pictorially, is where Hobbes compares the Papacy to the ghost
of the Roman Empire sitting upon its tomb. This implies a foregone
personification, but the pleasure it gives springs chiefly from our
sense of its historic and intellectual truth. And this subordinate form
of imagination uses typically and metaphorically those forms in which
ecstasy had formerly visibly clothed itself, flesh-and-blooded itself,
so to speak; as where Lord Bacon says that Persecution in the name
of Religion is “to bring down the Holy Ghost, not in the likeness of a
dove, but in the shape of a vulture or a raven.”

After reading more extracts from the poem, Mr. Lowell concluded his
lecture in these words:

Truly it seems to me that I can feel a heart beat all through this old
poem, a manly, trustful, and tender one. There are some men who
have what may be called a vindictive love of Truth—whose love of it,
indeed, seems to be only another form of hatred to their neighbor.
They put crooked pins on the stool of repentance before they invite
the erring to sit down on it. Our brother Langland is plainly not one of
these.

What I especially find to our purpose in Piers Ploughman, as I said

before, is that it defines with tolerable exactness those impulses
which our poetry has received from the Anglo-Saxon as
distinguished from the Anglo-Norman element of our race. It is a
common Yankee proverb that there is a great deal of human nature
in man. I think it especially true of the Anglo-Saxon man. We find in
this poem common sense, tenderness, a love of spiritual goodness
without much sensibility to the merely beautiful, a kind of domestic
feeling of nature and a respect for what is established. But what is
still more noticeable is that man is recognized as man, and that the
conservatism of Langland is predicated upon the well-being of the
people.

It is impossible to revive a dead poem, but it is pleasant, at least, to

throw a memorial flower upon its grave.
 LECTURE III
THE METRICAL ROMANCES

(Tuesday Evening, January 16, 1855)

III
Where is the Golden Age? It is fifty years ago to every man and
woman of three-score and ten. I do not doubt that aged Adam
babbled of the superiority of the good old times, and, forgetful in his
enthusiasm of that fatal bite which set the teeth of all his
descendants on edge, told, with a regretful sigh, how much larger
and finer the apples of his youth were than that to which the great-
grandson on his knee was giving a preliminary polish. Meanwhile the
great-grandson sees the good times far in front, a galaxy of golden
pippins whereof he shall pluck and eat as many as he likes without
question. Thus it is that none of us knows when Time is with him, but
the old man sees only his shoulders and that inexorable wallet in
which youth and beauty and strength are borne away as alms for
Oblivion; and the boy beholds but the glowing face and the hands
stretched out full of gifts like those of a St. Nicholas. Thus there is
never any present good; but the juggler, Life, smilingly baffles us all,
making us believe that the vanished ring is under his left hand or his
right, the past or the future, and shows us at last that it was in our
own pocket all the while.

So we may always listen with composure when we hear of Golden

Ages passed away. Burke pronounced the funeral oration of one—of
the age of Chivalry—the period of Metrical Romances—of which I
propose to speak to-night. Mr. Ruskin—himself as true a knight-
errant as ever sat in a demipique saddle, ready to break a lance with
all comers, and resolved that even the windmills and the drovers
shall not go about their business till they have done homage to his
Dulcinea—for the time being joins in the lament. Nay, what do we
learn from the old romances themselves, but that all the heroes were
already dead and buried? Their song also is a threnody, if we listen
rightly. For when did Oliver and Roland live? When Arthur and
Tristem and Lancelot and Caradoc Break-arm? In that Golden Age of
Chivalry which is always past.

Undoubtedly there was a great deal in the institution of Chivalry that

was picturesque; but it is noticeable in countries where society is still
picturesque that dirt and ignorance and tyranny have the chief hand
in making them so. Mr. Fenimore Cooper thought the American
savage picturesque, but if he had lived in a time when it was
necessary that one should take out a policy of insurance on his scalp
or wig before going to bed, he might have seen them in a different
light. The tourist looks up with delight at the eagle sliding in smooth-
winged circles on the icy mountain air, and sparkling back the low
morning sun like a belated star. But what does the lamb think of him?
Let us look at Chivalry a moment from the lamb’s point of view.

It is true that the investiture of the Knight was a religious ceremony,

but this was due to the Church, which in an age of brute force always
maintained the traditions at least of the intellect and conscience. The
vows which the Knights took had as little force as those of god-
parents, who fulfil their spiritual relation by sending a piece of plate
to the god-child. They stood by each other when it was for their
interest to do so, but the only virtue they had any respect for was an
arm stronger than their own. It is hard to say which they preferred to
break—a head, or one of the Ten Commandments. They looked
upon the rich Jew with thirty-two sound teeth in his head as a
providential contrivance, and practised upon him a comprehensive
kind of dental surgery, at once for profit and amusement, and then
put into some chapel a painted window with a Jewish prophet in it for
piety—as if they were the Jewish profits they cared about. They
outraged and robbed their vassals in every conceivable manner,
and, if very religious, made restitution on their death-beds by giving a
part of the plunder (when they could keep it no longer) to have
masses sung for the health of their souls—thus contriving, as they
thought, to be their own heirs in the other world. Individual examples
of heroism are not wanting to show that man is always paramount to
the institutions of his own contriving, so that any institution will yield
itself to the compelling charms of a noble nature. But even were this
not so, yet Sir Philip Sidney, the standard type of the chivalrous,
grew up under other influences. So did Lord Herbert of Cherbury, so
did the incomparable Bayard; and the single fact that is related as a
wonderful thing of Bayard, that, after the storming of Brescia, he
respected the honor of the daughter of a lady in whose house he
was quartered, notwithstanding she was beautiful and in his power,
is of more weight than all the romances in Don Quixote’s library.

But what form is that which rises before us, with features in which
the gentle and forgiving reproach of the woman is lost in the aspiring
power of the martyr?

We know her as she was,

The whitest lily in the shield of France,

With heart of virgin gold,

that bravest and most loyal heart over whose beatings knightly armor
was ever buckled, that saintly shape in which even battle looks
lovely, that life so pure, so inspired, so humble, which stands there
forever to show us how near womanhood ever is to heroism, and
that the human heart is true to an eternal instinct when it paints Faith
and Hope and Charity and Religion with the countenances of
women.

We are told that the sentiment of respect for woman, a sentiment

always remarkable in the Teutonic race, is an inheritance from the
Institution of Chivalry. But womanhood must be dressed in silk and
miniver that chivalry may recognize it. That priceless pearl hidden in
the coarse kirtle of the peasant-girl of Domremy it trampled under its
knightly feet—shall I say?—or swinish hoofs. Poor Joan! The
chivalry of France sold her; the chivalry of England subjected her to
outrages whose burning shame cooled the martyr-fire, and the King
whom she had saved, the very top of French Knighthood, was toying
with Agnes Sorel while the fagots were crackling around the savior of
himself and his kingdom in the square of Rouen! Thank God, that
our unchivalric generation can hack the golden spurs from such
recreant heels! A statue stands now where her ashes were gathered
to be cast into the Seine, but her fittest monument is the little
fountain beneath it, the emblem of her innocence, of her inspiration,
drawn not from court, or castle, or cloister, but from the inscrutable
depths of that old human nature and that heaven common to us all—
an emblem, no less, that the memory of a devoted life is a spring
where all coming times may drink the holy waters of gratitude and
aspiration. I confess that I cannot see clearly that later scaffold in the
Place de la Révolution, through the smoke of this martyr-fire at
Rouen, but it seems to me that, compared with this woman, the
Marie Antoinette, for whose sake Burke lamented the downfall of
chivalry, is only the daughter of a king.

But those old days, whether good or bad, have left behind them a
great body of literature, of which even yet a large part remains
unprinted. To this literature belong the Metrical Romances.
Astonished by the fancy and invention so abundantly displayed by
the writers of these poems, those who have written upon the subject
have set themselves gravely to work to find out what country they
could have got them from. Mr. Warton, following Dr. Warburton,
inclines to assign them to an Oriental origin. Dr. Percy, on the other
hand, asserts a Scandinavian origin; while Ritson, who would have
found it reason enough to think that the sun rose in the West if
Warton or Percy had taken the other side, is positive that they were
wholly French. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere between the
positions of Percy and Ritson. The Norman race, neither French nor
Scandinavian, was a product of the mingled blood of both, and in its
mental characteristics we find the gaiety and lively fancy of the one
tempering what is wild in the energy and gloomy in the imagination
of the other.

We know the exact date of the arrival of the first Metrical Romance in
England. Taillefer, a Norman minstrel, brought it over in his head,
and rode in the front at the battle of Hastings singing the song of
Roland. Taillefer answers precisely the description of a Danish skald,
but he sang in French, and the hero he celebrated was one of the
peers of Charlemagne, who was himself a German.

Taillefer, who well could sing a strain,

Upon a swift horse rode amain
Before the Duke and chanted loud
Of Charlemagne and Roland good,
Of Oliver and vassals brave
Who found at Roncesvalles their grave.

What this song of Roland was it is impossible to say, as the only

copy of it seems to have perished with Taillefer at the battle of
Hastings; but it was probably of the same kind with many of those
which have survived and brought down to us the exploits of Arthur
and his knights.

With regard to a large part of the romances of the Round Table, and
those which grew out of them, it is tolerably certain that, although
written in French, they were made in England.

One of the great charms of the Metrical Romances is the innocent

simplicity with which they commit anachronisms. Perhaps it would be
more exact to call them synchronisms, for, with the most undoubting
faith, they compel all other times to adopt the dress, manners, and
conventionalities of their own. To them there was no one world, nor
ever had been any, except that of Romance. They conferred
retrospective knighthood upon the patriarchs; upon Job, David, and
Solomon. Joseph of Arimathea became Sir Joseph of that ilk. Even
the soldier who pierced the side of Jesus upon the cross was made
into Sir Longinus and represented as running a tilt with our Lord. All
the heroes of the Grecian legend were treated in the same way.
They translated the old time and the old faith into new, and thus
completed the outfit of their own imaginary world, supplying it at a
very cheap rate with a Past and with mythology. And as they
believed the gods and genii of the Pagan ancients to have been evil
spirits who, though undeified, were imperishable in their essence,
they were allowed to emigrate in a body from the old religion into the
new, where they continued to exercise their functions, sometimes
under their former names, but oftener in some disguise. These
unfortunate aliens seem to have lived very much from hand to
mouth, and after the invention of holy water (more terrible to them
than Greek-fire) they must have had rather an uncomfortable time of
it. The giants were received with enthusiasm, and admitted to rights
of citizenship in the land of Romance, where they were allowed to
hold fiefs and castles in consideration of their eminent usefulness in
abducting damsels, and their serving as anvils to the knights, who
sometimes belabored them for three days at a time, the fight ending
at last, not from failure of breath on the part of the combatants but of
the minstrel. As soon as he has enough, or sees that his hearers
have, the head of the unhappy giant becomes loose on his
shoulders.

Another charm of the romances is their entire inconsequentiality. As

soon as we enter this wonderful country the old fetters of cause and
effect drop from our limbs, and we are no longer bound to give a
reason for anything. All things come to pass in that most charming of
ways which children explain by the comprehensive metaphysical
formula—“’cause.” Nothing seems to be premeditated, but a knight
falls in love, or out of it, fights, goes on board enchanted vessels that
carry him to countries laid down on no chart, and all without asking a
question. In truth, it is a delightful kind of impromptu life, such as we
all should like to lead if we could, with nothing set down in the bills
beforehand.

But the most singular peculiarity of Romance-land remains to be

noticed—there are no people in it, that is, no common people. The
lowest rank in life is that of a dwarf. It is true that if a knight loses his
way there will always be a clown or two to set him right. But they
disappear at once, and seem to be wholly phantasmagoric, or, at
best, an expedient rendered necessary by the absence of guide-
posts, and the inability of the cavaliers to read them if there had
been any. There are plenty of Saracens no doubt, but they are more