Abundance Ratio Variations in Solar Energetic Particle Events Observed by Parker Solar Probe from 2018 – 2025

Authors: S. Pak (Princeton University), C. M. S. Cohen (Caltech), R. A. Leske (Caltech), E. R. Christian (NASA/GSFC), L. Y. Khoo (Princeton University), M. E. Cuesta (Princeton University), J. S. Rankin (Princeton University), H. A. Farooki (Princeton University), Z. G. Xu (Caltech), A. J. Davis (Caltech), R. N. Jain (Princeton University), G. D. Muro (Caltech), J. G. Mitchell (NASA/GSFC), D. J. McComas (Princeton University), R. C. Allen (SwRI), S. Kasapis (Princeton University), M. M. Shen (Princeton University), J. R. Szalay (Princeton University), B. L. Shrestha (Princeton University), G. Livadiotis (Princeton University), A. W. Labrador (Caltech), M. E. Wiedenbeck (JPL)

We present a comprehensive survey of solar energetic particle (SEP) elemental composition measured by the Parker Solar Probe (PSP) Integrated Science Investigation of the Sun (IS☉IS) High Energy Energetic Particle Instrument (EPI‑Hi) from 2018 August to 2025 December. Using recalibrated Low Energy Telescope 1 (LET1) and High Energy Telescope (HET) fluxes, event-integrated fluence spectra for H, He, O, and Fe are derived after subtracting event-specific quiet-time baseline from each. The fluence spectra are fitted with the Band function and then integrated over 2 – 32 MeV nuc-1 to obtain event magnitude and compute event-integrated He/H and Fe/O. We examine the dependence of these ratios on event magnitude, solar activity, and PSP heliocentric distance R. The dominant result is a clear anticorrelation between abundance ratios and event magnitude: both He/H and Fe/O decrease with increasing magnitude, with more intense SEP events generally exhibiting lower ratios. In contrast, He/H and Fe/O show no significant direct dependence on solar activity, despite the magnitude increasing strongly with solar activity. Accordingly, interpreting solar-activity evolution in SEP composition requires accounting for event magnitude. Grouping events by observed distance (R ≤ 0.5 au and R > 0.5 au) yields consistent composition–magnitude anticorrelations and negligible direct R trends, indicating that the relationship is not an artifact of varying observation distance. By examining the composition–magnitude relationship from PSP measurements inside 1 au, these results illustrate how SEP sources vary with event magnitude across Solar Cycle 25 and provide a reference for acceleration and transport modeling and cross-mission comparisons.