4,382 research outputs found
Investigating the Kinematics of Coronal Mass Ejections with the Automated CORIMP Catalog
Studying coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in coronagraph data can be challenging
due to their diffuse structure and transient nature, compounded by the
variations in their dynamics, morphology, and frequency of occurrence. The
large amounts of data available from missions like the Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO) make manual cataloging of CMEs tedious and prone to human
error, and so a robust method of detection and analysis is required and often
preferred. A new coronal image processing catalog called CORIMP has been
developed in an effort to achieve this, through the implementation of a dynamic
background separation technique and multiscale edge detection. These algorithms
together isolate and characterise CME structure in the field-of-view of the
Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) onboard SOHO. CORIMP also applies
a Savitzky-Golay filter, along with quadratic and linear fits, to the
height-time measurements for better revealing the true CME speed and
acceleration profiles across the plane-of-sky. Here we present a sample of new
results from the CORIMP CME catalog, and directly compare them with the other
automated catalogs of Computer Aided CME Tracking (CACTus) and Solar Eruptive
Events Detection System (SEEDS), as well as the manual CME catalog at the
Coordinated Data Analysis Workshop (CDAW) Data Center and a previously
published study of the sample events. We further investigate a form of
unsupervised machine learning by using a k-means clustering algorithm to
distinguish detections of multiple CMEs that occur close together in space and
time. While challenges still exist, this investigation and comparison of
results demonstrates the reliability and robustness of the CORIMP catalog,
proving its effectiveness at detecting and tracking CMEs throughout the LASCO
dataset.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figures, 1 tabl
Coronal mass ejections from the same active region cluster: Two different perspectives
The cluster formed by active regions (ARs) NOAA 11121 and 11123,
approximately located on the solar central meridian on 11 November 2010, is of
great scientific interest. This complex was the site of violent flux emergence
and the source of a series of Earth-directed events on the same day. The onset
of the events was nearly simultaneously observed by the Atmospheric Imaging
Assembly (AIA) telescope aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the
Extreme-Ultraviolet Imagers (EUVI) on the Sun-Earth Connection Coronal and
Heliospheric Investigation (SECCHI) suite of telescopes onboard the
Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) twin spacecraft. The
progression of these events in the low corona was tracked by the Large Angle
Spectroscopic Coronagraphs (LASCO) onboard the Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO) and the SECCHI/COR coronagraphs on STEREO. SDO and SOHO
imagers provided data from the Earth's perspective, whilst the STEREO twin
instruments procured images from the orthogonal directions. This spatial
configuration of spacecraft allowed optimum simultaneous observations of the AR
cluster and the coronal mass ejections that originated in it. Quadrature
coronal observations provided by STEREO revealed a notably large amount of
ejective events compared to those detected from Earth's perspective.
Furthermore, joint observations by SDO/AIA and STEREO/SECCHI EUVI of the source
region indicate that all events classified by GOES as X-ray flares had an
ejective coronal counterpart in quadrature observations. These results have
direct impact on current space weather forecasting because of the probable
missing alarms when there is a lack of solar observations in a view direction
perpendicular to the Sun-Earth line.Comment: Solar Physics - Accepted for publication 2015-Apr-25 v2: Corrected
metadat
Super- and Sub-critical Regions in Shocks driven by Radio-Loud and Radio-Quiet CMEs
White-light coronagraphic images of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) observed by
SOHO/LASCO C2 have been used to estimate the density jump along the whole front
of two CME-driven shocks. The two events are different in that the first one
was a "radio-loud" fast CME, while the second one was a "radio quiet" slow CME.
From the compression ratios inferred along the shock fronts, we estimated the
Alfv\'en Mach numbers for the general case of an oblique shock. It turns out
that the "radio-loud" CME shock is initially super-critical around the shock
center, while later on the whole shock becomes sub-critical. On the contrary,
the shock associated with the "radio-quiet" CME is sub-critical at all times.
This suggests that CME-driven shocks could be efficient particle accelerators
at the shock nose only at the initiation phases of the event, if and when the
shock is super-critical, while at later times they lose their energy and the
capability to accelerate high energetic particles.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures. In press on the "Journal of Advanced Research",
Cairo University Pres
A Probabilistic Approach to the Drag-Based Model
The forecast of the time of arrival of a coronal mass ejection (CME) to Earth
is of critical importance for our high-technology society and for any future
manned exploration of the Solar System. As critical as the forecast accuracy is
the knowledge of its precision, i.e. the error associated to the estimate. We
propose a statistical approach for the computation of the time of arrival using
the drag-based model by introducing the probability distributions, rather than
exact values, as input parameters, thus allowing the evaluation of the
uncertainty on the forecast. We test this approach using a set of CMEs whose
transit times are known, and obtain extremely promising results: the average
value of the absolute differences between measure and forecast is 9.1h, and
half of these residuals are within the estimated errors. These results suggest
that this approach deserves further investigation. We are working to realize a
real-time implementation which ingests the outputs of automated CME tracking
algorithms as inputs to create a database of events useful for a further
validation of the approach.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figure
Coronal Mass Ejection Detection using Wavelets, Curvelets and Ridgelets: Applications for Space Weather Monitoring
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are large-scale eruptions of plasma and
magnetic feld that can produce adverse space weather at Earth and other
locations in the Heliosphere. Due to the intrinsic multiscale nature of
features in coronagraph images, wavelet and multiscale image processing
techniques are well suited to enhancing the visibility of CMEs and supressing
noise. However, wavelets are better suited to identifying point-like features,
such as noise or background stars, than to enhancing the visibility of the
curved form of a typical CME front. Higher order multiscale techniques, such as
ridgelets and curvelets, were therefore explored to characterise the morphology
(width, curvature) and kinematics (position, velocity, acceleration) of CMEs.
Curvelets in particular were found to be well suited to characterising CME
properties in a self-consistent manner. Curvelets are thus likely to be of
benefit to autonomous monitoring of CME properties for space weather
applications.Comment: Accepted for publication in Advances in Space Research (3 April 2010
Propagation of an Earth-directed coronal mass ejection in three dimensions
Solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are the most significant drivers of
adverse space weather at Earth, but the physics governing their propagation
through the heliosphere is not well understood. While stereoscopic imaging of
CMEs with the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) has provided
some insight into their three-dimensional (3D) propagation, the mechanisms
governing their evolution remain unclear due to difficulties in reconstructing
their true 3D structure. Here we use a new elliptical tie-pointing technique to
reconstruct a full CME front in 3D, enabling us to quantify its deflected
trajectory from high latitudes along the ecliptic, and measure its increasing
angular width and propagation from 2-46 solar radii (approximately 0.2 AU).
Beyond 7 solar radii, we show that its motion is determined by an aerodynamic
drag in the solar wind and, using our reconstruction as input for a 3D
magnetohydrodynamic simulation, we determine an accurate arrival time at the
Lagrangian L1 point near Earth.Comment: 5 figures, 2 supplementary movie
The Origin of Sequential Chromospheric Brightenings
Sequential chromospheric brightenings (SCBs) are often observed in the
immediate vicinity of erupting flares and are associated with coronal mass
ejections. Since their initial discovery in 2005, there have been several
subsequent investigations of SCBs. These studies have used differing detection
and analysis techniques, making it difficult to compare results between
studies. This work employs the automated detection algorithm of Kirk et al.
(Solar Phys. 283, 97, 2013) to extract the physical characteristics of SCBs in
11 flares of varying size and intensity. We demonstrate that the magnetic
substructure within the SCB appears to have a significantly smaller area than
the corresponding H-alpha emission. We conclude that SCBs originate in the
lower corona around 0.1 R_sun above the photosphere, propagate away from the
flare center at speeds of 35 - 85 km/s, and have peak photosphere magnetic
intensities of 148 +/- 2.9 G. In light of these measurements, we infer SCBs to
be distinctive chromospheric signatures of erupting coronal mass ejections.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures, 5 table
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