Propagation of the 2012 March Coronal Mass Ejections from the Sun to Heliopause

Abstract

In 2012 March the Sun exhibited extraordinary activities. In particular, the active region NOAA AR 11429 emitted a series of large coronal mass ejections (CMEs) which were imaged by STEREO as it rotated with the Sun from the east to west. These sustained eruptions are expected to generate a global shell of disturbed material sweeping through the heliosphere. A cluster of shocks and interplanetary CMEs (ICMEs) were observed near the Earth, and are propagated outward from 1 AU using an MHD model. The transient streams interact with each other, which erases memory of the source and results in a large merged interaction region (MIR) with a preceding shock. The MHD model predicts that the shock and MIR would reach 120 AU around 2013 April 22, which agrees well with the period of radio emissions and the time of a transient disturbance in galactic cosmic rays detected by Voyager 1. These results are important for understanding the "fate" of CMEs in the outer heliosphere and provide confidence that the heliopause is located around 120 AU from the Sun.

13 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ Letters

References in corpus (3)

• Constraints on the Global Structure of Magnetic Clouds: Transverse Size and Curvature
• Determining the azimuthal properties of coronal mass ejections from multi-spacecraft remote-sensing observations with stereo secchi
• A Comprehensive View of the 2006 December 13 CME: From the Sun to Interplanetary Space

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