The Analysis of Interplanetary Shocks Associated with Six Major Geo-Effective Coronal Mass Ejections during Solar Cycle 24

Shirsh Lata Soni,Prithvi Raj Singh,Radhe Syam Gupta,Bharti Nigam,Pankaj Kumar Shrivastava

doi:10.4236/ijaa.2019.93014

Shirsh Lata Soni, Prithvi Raj Singh + Show 3 more

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https://doi.org/10.4236/ijaa.2019.93014

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Abstract

A Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) is an ejection of energetic plasma with magnetic field from the Sun. In traversing the Sun-Earth distance, the kinematics of the CME is immensely important for the prediction of space weather. The objective of the present work is to study the propagation properties of six major geo-effective CMEs and their associated interplanetary shocks which were observed during solar cycle 24. These reported CME events produced intense geo-magnetic storms (Dst > 140 nT). The six CME events have a broad range of initial linear speeds ~600 - 2700 km/sec in the LASCO/SOHO field of view, comparing two slow CMEs (speed ~579 km/sec and 719 km/sec), three moderate speed CMEs (speed ~1366, 1571, 1008 km/sec), and one fast CME (speed ~2684 km/sec). The actual arrival time of the reported events is compared with the arrival time calculated using the Empirical Shock Arrival model (ESA model). For acceleration estimation, we utilize three different acceleration-speed equations reported in the previous literatures for different acceleration cessation distance (ACD). In addition, we compared the transit time estimated using the second-order speed of CMEs with observed transit time. We also compared the observed transit time with transit time obtained from various shock arrival model. From our present study, we found the importance of acceleration cessation distance for CME propagation in interplanetary space and better acceleration speed for transit time calculation than other equations for CME forecasting.

Highlights

Coronal Mass Ejection is the most energetic process of solar atmosphere
The total transit time is given by T = T1 + T2 where T1 is the time of travel up to the acceleration cessation distance d1 up to 1 AU (in Equation (1)) and T2 is travel time for reaming distance d2 at the constant speed (in Equation (2))
We presented the estimation of arrival time of six major coronal mass ejections which produced intense geo-magnetic storms more than Dst > 140 nT observed during solar cycle 24

Summary

Introduction

Coronal Mass Ejection is the most energetic process of solar atmosphere. The CME can be defined as an ejection of plasma with magnetic field from the Sun to the interplanetary space. Gopalswamy, in 2001, estimated the transit time of 47 Earth directed CME events observed during the period of 1996 to 2000 following the Empirical shock arrival (ESA) model. While the transit time for 83 halo CME events at 1 AU investigated by Michalek et al 2004 [8] Among these 83 events, an equation was obtained between effective acceleration and initial speed as a = 4.11 − 0.0063u for 49 CME events with several fast. We examine the propagation of six geo-effective CME events having a wide range of linear initial speed (~600 to 2700 km/sec) and produced intense geo-magnetic storms having value of Dst index more than (−140 nT). We compare the estimated arrival times with the actual arrival times and transit time obtained using Drag Based Model (DBM) Vrsnak et al, 2013 [2]

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