TEMPORAL AND PHYSICAL CONNECTION BETWEEN CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS AND FLARES

Abstract

The physical connection between the eruption of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and associated flare energy release is examined. The trajectories of five CMEs are determined using LASCO/SOHO or SECCHI/STEREO data, and the associated soft X-ray (SXR) light curves are obtained from GOES 1-8 A data. As the theoretical description of CME physics, the existing erupting flux-rope model is used in which an initial flux rope is driven out of equilibrium by the increasing poloidal magnetic flux {Phi}{sub p}(t) (poloidal 'flux injection'). Mathematically, this is represented by d{Phi}{sub p}(t)/dt. For each CME, this function is adjusted to obtain the solution that best fits the observed height-time data. The resulting d{Phi}{sub p}(t)/dt is shown to be strongly constrained by the CME height data. This function and the attendant electromotive force (EMF) given by E(t){identical_to}-(1/c)d{Phi}{sub p}(t)/dt constitute predictions of the theory for each CME trajectory. It is shown that the best-fit solutions fit the CME trajectories within 1%-2% of the CME height data and that the temporal profile of the predicted d{Phi} {sub p}(t)/dt is correlated with that of the associated X-ray light curve regardless of the flare duration. Specifically, we find that the observed duration of SXR emission {Delta}T{sub SXR} is comparablemore » to and scales with the predicted duration {Delta}T{sub p} of poloidal flux injection, i.e., {Delta}T{sub SXR} {approx_equal} {Delta}T{sub p} . Neither the predicted d{Phi} {sub p}(t)/dt nor the input CME height data contain any information on X-ray data. Thus, the correlation is nontrivial, constituting evidence that poloidal flux injection is physically connected to flare energy release. It is suggested that this connection is provided by the EMF that produces electric fields to accelerate particles.« less