Distribution of latitudes and speeds of Coronal Mass Ejections in the northern and southern hemispheres in cycle 23

Abstract

Distribution of latitudes and speeds of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) in the northern and southern hemispheres in cycle 23, from September 1996 to December 2006, have been analyzed. By calculating the actual probability of the hemispheric distribution of the activity of the CME, we find that a southern dominance of the activity of the CME is shown to occur in cycle 23 from September 1996 to December 2006. The CME activity occurs at all latitudes and is most common at low latitudes. This should furnish evidence to support that CMEs are associated with source magnetic structures on a large spatial scale, even with transequatorial source magnetic structures on a large spatial scale. The latitudinal distribution of CMEs in the northern and southern hemispheres are no different from a statistical point of view. The speed distribution in the northern and southern hemispheres are nearly identical and to a good approximation they can be fitted with a single lognormal distribution. This finding implies that, statistically, there is no physical distinction between the CME events in the southern and northern hemispheres and the same mechanism of a nonlinear nature acting in both the CME events in the northern and southern hemispheres. Our conclusions seem to suggest that the northernsouthern asymmetry of the CME events is related to the northern-southern asymmetry in solar dynamo theory.