The AD775 cosmic event revisited: the Sun is to blame

¹ Sodankylä Geophysical Observatory (Oulu unit) and Physics Dept., University of Oulu, 99600 Sodankylä, Finland
e-mail: Ilya.Usoskin@oulu.fi
² Klaus-Tschira-Laboratory for Scientific Dating, Curt-Engelhorn-Centre for Archaeometry, D6, 3, 68159 Mannheim, Germany
³ Harvard University Center for the Environment, and Department of History, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
⁴ Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Eawag, Überlandstrasse 133, 8600 Dübendorf, Switzerland
⁵ Hohenheim University, Institute of Botany (210), 70593 Stuttgart, Germany
⁶ Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute, 194021 St. Petersburg, Russia
⁷ Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Max-Planck-Str. 2, 37191 Katlenburg-Lindau, Germany
⁸ School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University, Yongin, 446-701 Gyeonggi, Korea
⁹ Department of Physics, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology ETHZ, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

Received: 11 January 2013
Accepted: 26 February 2013

Abstract

Aims. Miyake et al. (2012, Nature, 486, 240, henceforth M12) recently reported, based on ¹⁴C data, an extreme cosmic event in about AD775. Using a simple model, M12 claimed that the event was too strong to be caused by a solar flare within the standard theory. This implied a new paradigm of either an impossibly strong solar flare or a very strong cosmic ray event of unknown origin that occurred around AD775. However, as we show, the strength of the event was significantly overestimated by M12. Several subsequent works have attempted to find a possible exotic source for such an event, including a giant cometary impact upon the Sun or a gamma-ray burst, but they are all based on incorrect estimates by M12. We revisit this event with analysis of new datasets and consistent theoretical modelling.

Methods. We verified the experimental result for the AD775 cosmic ray event using independent datasets including ¹⁰Be series and newly measured ¹⁴C annual data. We surveyed available historical chronicles for astronomical observations for the period around the AD770s to identify potential sightings of aurorae borealis and supernovae. We interpreted the ¹⁴C measurements using an appropriate carbon cycle model.

Results. We show that: (1) The reality of the AD775 event is confirmed by new measurements of ¹⁴C in German oak; (2) by using an inappropriate carbon cycle model, M12 strongly overestimated the event’s strength; (3) the revised magnitude of the event (the global ¹⁴C production Q = (1.1 − 1.5) × 10⁸ atoms/cm²) is consistent with different independent datasets (¹⁴C, ¹⁰Be, ³⁶Cl) and can be associated with a strong, but not inexplicably strong, solar energetic particle event (or a sequence of events), and provides the first definite evidence for an event of this magnitude (the fluence >30 MeV was about 4.5 × 10¹⁰ cm^-2) in multiple datasets; (4) this interpretation is in agreement with increased auroral activity identified in historical chronicles.

Conclusions. The results point to the likely solar origin of the event, which is now identified as the greatest solar event on a multi-millennial time scale, placing a strong observational constraint on the theory of explosive energy releases on the Sun and cool stars.