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Register a new userThe Structure of Solar Coronal Mass Ejections in the Extreme-Ultraviolet Passbands
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So far most studies on the structure of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are conducted through white-light coronagraphs, which demonstrate about one third of CMEs exhibit the typical three-part structure in the high corona (e.g., beyond 2 Rs), i.e., the bright front, the dark cavity and the bright core. In this paper, we address the CME structure in the low corona (e.g., below 1.3 Rs) through extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) passbands and find that the three-part CMEs in the white-light images can possess a similar three-part appearance in the EUV images, i.e., a leading edge, a low-density zone, and a filament or hot channel. The analyses identify that the leading edge and the filament or hot channel in the EUV passbands evolve into the front and the core later within several solar radii in the white-light passbands, respectively. Whats more, we find that the CMEs without obvious cavity in the white-light images can also exhibit the clear three-part appearance in the EUV images, which means that the low-density zone in the EUV images (observed as the cavity in white-light images) can be compressed and/or transformed gradually by the expansion of the bright core and/or the reconnection of magnetic field surrounding the core during the CME propagation outward. Our study suggests that more CMEs can possess the clear three-part structure in their early eruption stage. The nature of the low-density zone between the leading edge and the filament or hot channel is discussed.
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Similar to the Sun, other stars shed mass and magnetic flux via ubiquitous quasi-steady wind and episodic stellar coronal mass ejections (CMEs). We investigate the mass loss rate via solar wind and CMEs as a function of solar magnetic variability represented in terms of sunspot number and solar X-ray background luminosity. We estimate the contribution of CMEs to the total solar wind mass flux in the ecliptic and beyond, and its variation over different phases of the solar activity cycles. The study exploits the number of sunspots observed, coronagraphic observations of CMEs near the Sun by SOHO/LASCO, in situ observations of the solar wind at 1 AU by WIND, and GOES X-ray flux during solar cycle 23 and 24. We note that the X-ray background luminosity, occurrence rate of CMEs and ICMEs, solar wind mass flux, and associated mass loss rates from the Sun do not decrease as strongly as the sunspot number from the maximum of solar cycle 23 to the next maximum. Our study confirms a true physical increase in CME activity relative to the sunspot number in cycle 24. We show that the CME occurrence rate and associated mass loss rate can be better predicted by X-ray background luminosity than the sunspot number. The solar wind mass loss rate which is an order of magnitude more than the CME mass loss rate shows no obvious dependency on cyclic variation in sunspot number and solar X-ray background luminosity. These results have implications to the study of solar-type stars.
Aims. The study of the morphology of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) is an auspicious approach to understanding how magnetic fields are structured within CMEs. Although earlier studies have suggested an asymmetry in the width of CMEs in orthogonal directions, this has not been inspected using multi-viewpoint observations. Methods. We inspect the early evolution (below ten solar radii) of the morphology of a dozen CMEs occurring under specific conditions of observing spacecraft location and CME trajectory, favorable to reduce uncertainties typically involved in the 3D reconstruction used here. These events are carefully reconstructed by means of a forward modeling tool using simultaneous observations of STEREO EUVI and SDO/AIA as input when originating low in the corona, and followed up in the outer fields of view of the STEREO and the SOHO coronagraphs. We then examine the height evolution of the morphological parameters arising from the reconstructions. Results. The multi-viewpoint analysis of this set of CMEs revealed that their initial expansion --below three solar radii-- is considerably asymmetric and non-self-similar. Both angular widths, namely along the main axes of CMEs ($AW_L$) and in the orthogonal direction ($AW_D$, representative of the flux rope diameter), exhibit much steeper change rates below this height, with the growth rate of $AW_L$ found to be larger than that of $AW_D$, also below that height. Angular widths along the main axes of CMEs are on average $approx$1.8 times larger than widths in the orthogonal direction $AW_D$. The ratios of the two expansion speeds, namely in the directions of CMEs main axes and in their orthogonal, are nearly constant in time after $sim$4 solar radii, with an average ratio $approx$1.6. Heights at which the width change rate is defined to stabilize are greater for $AW_L$ than for $AW_D$.
The scenario of twin coronal mass ejections (CMEs), i.e., a fast and wide primary CME (priCME) preceded by previous CMEs (preCMEs), has been found to be favorable to a more efficient particle acceleration in large solar energetic particle (SEP) events. Here, we study 19 events during 2007--2014 associated with twin-CME eruptions but without large SEP observations at L1 point. We combine remote-sensing and in situ observations from multiple spacecraft to investigate the role of magnetic connectivity in SEP detection and the CME information in 3-dimensional (3D) space. We study one-on-one correlations of the priCME 3D speed, flare intensity, suprathermal backgrounds, and height of CME-CME interaction with the SEP intensity. Among these, the priCME speed is found to correlate with the SEP peak intensity at the highest level. We use the projection correlation method to analyze the correlations between combinations of these multiple independent factors and the SEP peak intensity. We find that the only combination of two or more parameters that has higher correlation with the SEP peak intensity than the CME speed is the CME speed combined with the propagation direction. This further supports the dominant role of the priCME in controlling the SEP enhancements, and emphasizes the consideration of the latitudinal effect. Overall, the magnetic connectivity in longitude as well as latitude and the relatively lower priCME speed may explain the existence of the twin-CME SEP-poor events. The role of the barrier effect of preCME(s) is discussed for an event on 2013 October 28.
We present an advance towards accurately predicting the arrivals of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) at the terrestrial planets, including Earth. For the first time, we are able to assess a CME prediction model using data over 2/3 of a solar cycle of observations with the Heliophysics System Observatory. We validate modeling results of 1337 CMEs observed with the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) heliospheric imagers (HI) (science data) from 8 years of observations by 5 in situ observing spacecraft. We use the self-similar expansion model for CME fronts assuming 60 degree longitudinal width, constant speed and constant propagation direction. With these assumptions we find that 23%-35% of all CMEs that were predicted to hit a certain spacecraft lead to clear in situ signatures, so that for 1 correct prediction, 2 to 3 false alarms would have been issued. In addition, we find that the prediction accuracy does not degrade with the HI longitudinal separation from Earth. Predicted arrival times are on average within 2.6 +/- 16.6 hours difference of the in situ arrival time, similar to analytical and numerical modeling, and a true skill statistic of 0.21. We also discuss various factors that may improve the accuracy of space weather forecasting using wide-angle heliospheric imager observations. These results form a first order approximated baseline of the prediction accuracy that is possible with HI and other methods used for data by an operational space weather mission at the Sun-Earth L5 point.
We demonstrate how the parameters of a Gibson-Low flux-rope-based coronal mass ejection (CME) can be constrained using remote observations. Our Multi Scale Fluid-Kinetic Simulation Suite (MS-FLUKSS) has been used to simulate the propagation of a CME in a data driven solar corona background computed using the photospheric magnetogram data. We constrain the CME model parameters using the observations of such key CME properties as its speed, orientation, and poloidal flux. The speed and orientation are estimated using multi-viewpoint white-light coronagraph images. The reconnected magnetic flux in the area covered by the post eruption arcade is used to estimate the poloidal flux in the CME flux rope. We simulate the partial halo CME on 7 March 2011 to demonstrate the efficiency of our approach. This CME erupted with the speed of 812 km/s and its poloidal flux, as estimated from source active region data, was 4.9e21 Mx. Using our approach, we were able to simulate this CME with the speed 840 km/s and the poloidal flux of 5.1e21 Mx, in remarkable agreement with the observations.
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