CME-induced Thermodynamic Changes in the Corona as Inferred from Fe xi and Fe xiv Emission Observations during the 2017 August 21 Total Solar Eclipse

Abstract

Abstract We present the first remote sensing observations of the impact from a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) on the thermodynamic properties of the solar corona between 1 and 3 R ⊙. Measurements of the Fe xi (789.2 nm) and Fe xiv (530.3 nm) emission were acquired with identical narrow-bandpass imagers at three observing sites during the 2017 August 21 Total Solar Eclipse (TSE). Additional continuum imagers were used to observe K+F corona scattering, which is critical for the diagnostics presented here. The total distance between sites along the path of totality was 1400 km, corresponding to a difference of 28 minutes between the times of totality at the first and last site. These observations were used to measure the Fe xi and Fe xiv emission relative to continuum scattering, as well as the relative abundance of Fe10+ and Fe13+ from the line ratio. The electron temperature (T e ) was then computed via theoretical ionization abundance values. We find that the range of T e is (1.1–1.2) × 106 K in coronal holes and (1.2–1.4) × 106 K in streamers. Statistically significant changes of T e occurred throughout much of the corona between the sites as a result of serendipitous CME activity prior to the eclipse. These results underscore the unique advantage of multi-site and multi-wavelength TSE observations for probing the dynamic and thermodynamic properties of the corona over an uninterrupted distance range from 1 to 3 R ⊙.