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Register a new userOn Understanding the Nature of Collision of Coronal Mass Ejections Observed by textit{STEREO}
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Our study attempts to understand the collision characteristics of two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) launched successively from the Sun on 2013 October 25. The estimated kinematics, from three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction techniques applied to observations of CMEs by SECCHI/Coronagraphic (COR) and Heliospheric Imagers (HIs), reveal their collision around 37 $R_sun$ from the Sun. In the analysis, we take into account the propagation and expansion speeds, impact direction, angular size as well as the masses of the CMEs. These parameters are derived from imaging observations, but may suffer from large uncertainties. Therefore, by adopting head-on as well as oblique collision scenarios, we have quantified the range of uncertainties involved in the calculation of the coefficient of restitution for expanding magnetized plasmoids. Our study shows that the comparatively large expansion speed of the following CME than that of the preceding CME, results in a higher probability of super-elastic collision. We also infer that a relative approaching speed of the CMEs lower than the sum of their expansion speeds increases the chance of super-elastic collision. The analysis under a reasonable errors in observed parameters of the CME, reveals the larger probability of occurrence of an inelastic collision for the selected CMEs. We suggest that the collision nature of two CMEs should be discussed in 3D, and the calculated value of the coefficient of restitution may suffer from a large uncertainty.
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There have been few attempts in the past to understand the collision of individual cases of interacting Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). We selected 8 cases of interacting CMEs and estimated their propagation and expansion speeds, direction of impact and masses exploiting coronagraphic and heliospheric imaging observations. Using these estimates with ignoring the errors therein, we find that the nature of collision is perfectly inelastic for 2 cases (e.g., 2012 March and November), inelastic for 2 cases (e.g., 2012 June and 2011 August), elastic for 1 case (e.g., 2013 October) and super-elastic for 3 cases (e.g., 2011 February, 2010 May and 2012 September). Admitting large uncertainties in the estimated directions, angular widths and pre-collision speeds; the probability of perfectly inelastic collision for 2012 March and November cases diverge from 98%-60% and 100%-40%, respectively, reserving some probability for other nature of collision. Similarly, the probability of inelastic collision diverge from 95%-50% for 2012 June case, 85%-50% for 2011 August case, and 75%-15% for 2013 October case. We note that probability of super-elastic collision for 2011 February, 2010 May and 2012 September CMEs diverge from 90%-75%, 60%-45% and 90%-50%, respectively. Although the sample size is small, we find a good dependence of nature of collision on CMEs parameters. The crucial pre-collision parameters of the CMEs responsible for increasing the probability of super-elastic collision, in descending order of priority, are their lower approaching speed, higher expansion speed of the following CME over the preceding one, and longer duration of collision phase.
We identify coronal mass ejections (CMEs) associated with magnetic clouds (MCs) observed near Earth by the Wind spacecraft from 2008 to mid-2012, a time period when the two STEREO spacecraft were well positioned to study Earth-directed CMEs. We find 31 out of 48 Wind MCs during this period can be clearly connected with a CME that is trackable in STEREO imagery all the way from the Sun to near 1 AU. For these events, we perform full 3-D reconstructions of the CME structure and kinematics, assuming a flux rope morphology for the CME shape, considering the full complement of STEREO and SOHO imaging constraints. We find that the flux rope orientations and sizes inferred from imaging are not well correlated with MC orientations and sizes inferred from the Wind data. However, velocities within the MC region are reproduced reasonably well by the image-based reconstruction. Our kinematic measurements are used to provide simple prescriptions for predicting CME arrival times at Earth, provided for a range of distances from the Sun where CME velocity measurements might be made. Finally, we discuss the differences in the morphology and kinematics of CME flux ropes associated with different surface phenomena (flares, filament eruptions, or no surface activity).
We have performed, for the first time, the successful automated detection of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) in data from the inner heliospheric imager (HI-1) cameras on the STEREO A spacecraft. Detection of CMEs is done in time-height maps based on the application of the Hough transform, using a modified version of the CACTus software package, conventionally applied to coronagraph data. In this paper we describe the method of detection. We present the result of the application of the technique to a few CMEs that are well detected in the HI-1 imagery, and compare these results with those based on manual cataloging methodologies. We discuss in detail the advantages and disadvantages of this method.
Between July 5th and July 7th 2004, two intriguing fast coronal mass ejection(CME)-streamer interaction events were recorded by the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO). At the beginning of the events, the streamer was pushed aside from their equilibrium position upon the impact of the rapidly outgoing and expanding ejecta; then, the streamer structure, mainly the bright streamer belt, exhibited elegant large scale sinusoidal wavelike motions. The motions were apparently driven by the restoring magnetic forces resulting from the CME impingement, suggestive of magnetohydrodynamic kink mode propagating outwards along the plasma sheet of the streamer. The mode is supported collectively by the streamer-plasma sheet structure and is therefore named streamer wave in the present study. With the white light coronagraph data, we show that the streamer wave has a period of about 1 hour, a wavelength varying from 2 to 4 solar radii, an amplitude of about a few tens of solar radii, and a propagating phase speed in the range 300 to 500 km s$^{-1}$. We also find that there is a tendancy for the phase speed to decline with increasing heliocentric distance. These observations provide good examples of large scale wave phenomena carried by coronal structures, and have significance in developing seismological techniques for diagnosing plasma and magnetic parameters in the outer corona.
Recently, we developed the Correlation-Aided Reconstruction (CORAR) method to reconstruct solar wind inhomogeneous structures, or transients, using dual-view white-light images (Li et al. 2020; Li et al. 2018). This method is proved to be useful for studying the morphological and dynamical properties of transients like blobs and coronal mass ejection (CME), but the accuracy of reconstruction may be affected by the separation angle between the two spacecraft (Lyu et al. 2020). Based on the dual-view CME events from the Heliospheric Imager CME Join Catalogue (HIJoinCAT) in the HELCATS (Heliospheric Cataloguing, Analysis and Techniques Service) project, we study the quality of the CME reconstruction by the CORAR method under different STEREO stereoscopic angles. We find that when the separation angle of spacecraft is around 150{deg}, most CME events can be well reconstructed. If the collinear effect is considered, the optimal separation angle should locate between 120{deg} and 150{deg}. Compared with the CME direction given in the Heliospheric Imager Geometrical Catalogue (HIGeoCAT) from HELCATS, the CME parameters obtained by the CORAR method are reasonable. However, the CORAR-obtained directions have deviations towards the meridian plane in longitude, and towards the equatorial plane in latitude. An empirical formula is proposed to correct these deviations. This study provides the basis for the spacecraft configuration of our recently proposed Solar Ring mission concept (Wang et al. 2020b).
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