No Arabic abstract
We present first observations of a dome-shaped large-scale EUV coronal wave, recorded by the EUVI instrument onboard STEREO-B on January 17, 2010. The main arguments that the observed structure is the wave dome (and not the CME) are: a) the spherical form and sharpness of the domes outer edge and the erupting CME loops observed inside the dome; b) the low-coronal wave signatures above the limb perfectly connecting to the on-disk signatures of the wave; c) the lateral extent of the expanding dome which is much larger than that of the coronal dimming; d) the associated high-frequency type II burst indicating shock formation low in the corona. The velocity of the upward expansion of the wave dome ($v sim 650$ km s$^{-1}$) is larger than that of the lateral expansion of the wave ($v sim 280$ km s$^{-1}$), indicating that the upward dome expansion is driven all the time, and thus depends on the CME speed, whereas in the lateral direction it is freely propagating after the CME lateral expansion stops. We also examine the evolution of the perturbation characteristics: First the perturbation profile steepens and the amplitude increases. Thereafter, the amplitude decreases with r$^{-2.5 pm 0.3}$, the width broadens, and the integral below the perturbation remains constant. Our findings are consistent with the spherical expansion and decay of a weakly shocked fast-mode MHD wave.
Taking advantage of both the high temporal and spatial resolution of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), we studied a limb coronal shock wave and its associated extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wave that occurred on 2010 June 13. Our main findings are (1) the shock wave appeared clearly only in the channels centered at 193 AA and 211 AA as a dome-like enhancement propagating ahead of its associated semi-spherical CME bubble; (2) the density compression of the shock is 1.56 according to radio data and the temperature of the shockis around 2.8 MK; (3) the shock wave first appeared at 05:38 UT, 2 minutes after the associated flare has started and 1 minute after its associated CME bubble appeared;(4) the top of the dome-like shock wave set out from about 1.23 Rodot and the thickness of the shocked layer is ~ 2times10^4 km; (5) the speed of the shock wave is consistent with a slight decrease from about 600 km/s to 550 km/s; (6) the lateral expansion of the shock wave suggests a constant speed around 400 km/s, which varies at different heights and directions. Our findings support the view that the coronal shock wave is driven by the CME bubble, and the on-limb EUV wave is consistent with a fast wave or at least includes the fast wave component.
EUV (Extreme-Ultraviolet) waves are globally propagating disturbances that have been observed since the era of the SoHO/EIT instrument. Although the kinematics of the wave front and secondary wave components have been widely studied, there is not much known about the generation and plasma properties of the wave. In this paper we discuss the effect of an EUV wave on the local plasma as it passes through the corona. We studied the EUV wave, generated during the 2011 February 15 X-class flare/CME event, using Differential Emission Measure diagnostics. We analyzed regions on the path of the EUV wave and investigated the local density and temperature changes. From our study we have quantitatively confirmed previous results that during wave passage the plasma visible in the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) 171A channel is getting heated to higher temperatures corresponding to AIA 193A and 211A channels. We have calculated an increase of 6 - 9% in density and 5 - 6% in temperature during the passage of the EUV wave. We have compared the variation in temperature with the adiabatic relationship and have quantitatively demonstrated the phenomenon of heating due to adiabatic compression at the wave front. However, the cooling phase does not follow adiabatic relaxation but shows slow decay indicating slow energy release being triggered by the wave passage. We have also identified that heating is taking place at the front of the wave pulse rather than at the rear. Our results provide support for the case that the event under study here is a compressive fast-mode wave or a shock.
The Sun Watcher with Active Pixels and Image Processing (SWAP) EUV solar telescope on board the Project for On-Board Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) spacecraft has been regularly observing the solar corona in a bandpass near 17.4 nm since February 2010. With a field-of-view of 54x54 arcmin, SWAP provides the widest-field images of the EUV corona available from the perspective of the Earth. By carefully processing and combining multiple SWAP images it is possible to produce low-noise composites that reveal the structure of the EUV corona to relatively large heights. A particularly important step in this processing was to remove instrumental stray light from the images by determining and deconvolving SWAPs point spread function (PSF) from the observations. In this paper we use the resulting images to conduct the first ever study of the evolution of the large-scale structure of the corona observed in the EUV over a three-year period that includes the complete rise phase of solar cycle 24. Of particular note is the persistence over many solar rotations of bright, diffuse features composed of open magnetic field that overlie polar crown filaments and extend to large heights above the solar surface. These features appear to be related to coronal fans, which have previously been observed in white-light coronagraph images and, at low heights, in the EUV. We also discuss the evolution of the corona at different heights above the solar surface and the evolution of the corona over the course of the solar cycle by hemisphere.
We investigate the interaction of three consecutive large-scale coronal waves with a polar coronal hole, simultaneously observed on-disk by the Solar TErrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO)-A spacecraft and on the limb by the PRoject for On-Board Autonomy 2 (PROBA2) spacecraft on January 27, 2011. All three extreme-ultraviolet(EUV) waves originate from the same active region NOAA 11149 positioned at N30E15 in the STEREO-A field-of-view and on the limb in PROBA2. We derive for the three primary EUV waves start velocities in the range of ~310 km/s for the weakest up to ~500 km/s for the strongest event. Each large-scale wave is reflected at the border of the extended coronal hole at the southern polar region. The average velocities of the reflected waves are found to be smaller than the mean velocities of their associated direct waves. However, the kinematical study also reveals that in each case the end velocity of the primary wave matches the initial velocity of the reflected wave. In all three events the primary and reflected waves obey the Huygens-Fresnel principle, as the incident angle with ~10{deg} to the normal is of the same size as the angle of reflection. The correlation between the speed and the strength of the primary EUV waves, the homologous appearance of both the primary and the reflected waves, and in particular the EUV wave reflections themselves implicate that the observed EUV transients are indeed nonlinear large-amplitude MHD waves.
On 17 January 2010, STEREO-B observed in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and white light a large-scale dome-shaped expanding coronal transient with perfectly connected off-limb and on-disk signatures. Veronig et al. (2010, ApJL 716, 57) concluded that the dome was formed by a weak shock wave. We have revealed two EUV components, one of which corresponded to this transient. All of its properties found from EUV, white light, and a metric type II burst match expectations for a freely expanding coronal shock wave including correspondence to the fast-mode speed distribution, while the transient sweeping over the solar surface had a speed typical of EUV waves. The shock wave was presumably excited by an abrupt filament eruption. Both a weak shock approximation and a power-law fit match kinematics of the transient near the Sun. Moreover, the power-law fit matches expansion of the CME leading edge up to 24 solar radii. The second, quasi-stationary EUV component near the dimming was presumably associated with a stretched CME structure; no indications of opening magnetic fields have been detected far from the eruption region.