STATISTICAL STUDY ON THE DECAY PHASE OF SOLAR NEAR-RELATIVISTIC ELECTRON EVENTS

We study the decay phase of solar near-relativistic (53-315 keV) electron events as observed by the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) and the Ulysses spacecraft during solar cycle 23. By fitting an exponential function (exp-t/tau) to the time-intensity profile in the late phase of selected solar near-relativistic electron events, we examine the dependence of tau on electron energy, electron intensity spectra, event peak intensity, event fluence, and solar wind velocity, as well as heliocentric radial distance, heliolatitude, and heliolongitude of the spacecraft with respect to the parent solar event. The decay rates are found to be either independent or slightly decrease with the electron energy. No clear dependence is found between tau and the heliolongitude of the parent solar event, with the exception of well-connected events for which low values of tau are more commonly observed than for poorly-connected events. For those events concurrently observed by ACE and Ulysses, decay rates increase at distances >3 AU. Events with similar decay rates at ACE and Ulysses were observed mainly when Ulysses was at high heliographic latitudes. We discuss the basic physical mechanisms that control the decay phase of the electron events and conclude that both solar wind convection and adiabatic deceleration effects influence the final shape of the decay phase of solar energetic particle events, but not as expressed by the models based on diffusive transport acting on an isotropic particle population.