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Isotope Traces of Early Solar Activity

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Observations of young rapidly rotating G-type stars show that a large number of super-powerful flares occur on them. According to the early Sun activity model proposed by (Airapetian et al., 2016), it is assumed that during the first 700 million years there were 250 flares per day with an energy release comparable to the Carrington event of 1859. Within the framework of this model, the high intensity of irradiation of the Earth’s atmosphere by solar cosmic rays (SCR) led to the formation of a large amount of greenhouse gases in ion-molecular reactions. Their high concentration in the atmosphere of the early Earth made it possible to solve the so-called “early Sun” paradox, where high climate temperatures existed on Earth at a reduced luminosity (by 20–30%). We have estimated the possible parameters of early Sun activity from data on the isotope composition of gases in the atmospheres of terrestrial planets. As a result of nuclear reactions of SCR protons with atmospheric gases, the 13C/12C and 15N/14N isotope ratios increase in the atmospheres of planets, since the yields of heavy and light C and N isotopes in nuclear spallation reactions are close, and the initial 13C/12C and 15N/14N ratios in planetary atmospheres are less than 0.01. The production of isotopes depends on the shape of the proton spectrum, the intensity of SCR fluxes, and the composition of early atmospheres. Therefore, modern 13C/12C and 15N/14N isotope ratios in the atmospheres of Venus and Mars give a limit to the activity of the early Sun. Our calculations show that in the Martian atmosphere the 13C/12C ratio should increase by tens of percent, and 15N/14N by several times, which contradicts the measurements. In the atmosphere of Venus, the change in isotope ratios under the influence of SCR is within the limits of the measurement error. Possible explanations of the obtained results are considered, including restrictions on the level of activity of the early Sun and SCR spectra, and the possible composition and mass of the early atmospheres of Mars and Venus.

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This work was supported by ongoing institutional funding. No additional grants to carry out or direct thisparticular research were obtained.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ioffe Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg, Russia

    G. I. Vasiliev & A. K. Pavlov

  2. Peter the Great St. Peterburg Polytechnic University, St. Petersburg, Russia

    E. S. Melikhova

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  1. G. I. Vasiliev
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  2. E. S. Melikhova
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  3. A. K. Pavlov
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Correspondence to G. I. Vasiliev, E. S. Melikhova or A. K. Pavlov.

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Vasiliev, G.I., Melikhova, E.S. & Pavlov, A.K. Isotope Traces of Early Solar Activity. Geomagn. Aeron. 63, 942–946 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1134/S0016793223070253

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