Assessing the collision nature of coronal mass ejections in the inner heliosphere
arXiv:1707.08299 · doi:10.3847/1538-4365/aa8139
Abstract
There have been few attempts in the past to understand the collision of individual cases of interacting Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). We selected 8 cases of interacting CMEs and estimated their propagation and expansion speeds, direction of impact and masses exploiting coronagraphic and heliospheric imaging observations. Using these estimates with ignoring the errors therein, we find that the nature of collision is perfectly inelastic for 2 cases (e.g., 2012 March and November), inelastic for 2 cases (e.g., 2012 June and 2011 August), elastic for 1 case (e.g., 2013 October) and super-elastic for 3 cases (e.g., 2011 February, 2010 May and 2012 September). Admitting large uncertainties in the estimated directions, angular widths and pre-collision speeds; the probability of perfectly inelastic collision for 2012 March and November cases diverge from 98%-60% and 100%-40%, respectively, reserving some probability for other nature of collision. Similarly, the probability of inelastic collision diverge from 95%-50% for 2012 June case, 85%-50% for 2011 August case, and 75%-15% for 2013 October case. We note that probability of super-elastic collision for 2011 February, 2010 May and 2012 September CMEs diverge from 90%-75%, 60%-45% and 90%-50%, respectively. Although the sample size is small, we find a good dependence of nature of collision on CMEs parameters. The crucial pre-collision parameters of the CMEs responsible for increasing the probability of super-elastic collision, in descending order of priority, are their lower approaching speed, higher expansion speed of the following CME over the preceding one, and longer duration of collision phase.
38 pages, 13 figures, accepted in ApJ Supplement Series
References in corpus (16)
- Strong coronal channelling and interplanetary evolution of a solar storm up to Earth and Mars
- Determining the azimuthal properties of coronal mass ejections from multi-spacecraft remote-sensing observations with stereo secchi
- Global and local expansion of magnetic clouds in the inner heliosphere
- Accuracy and Limitations of Fitting and Stereoscopic Methods to Determine the Direction of Coronal Mass Ejections from Heliospheric Imagers Observations
- Evolution of the 2012 July 12 CME from the Sun to the Earth: Data-Constrained Three-Dimensional MHD Simulations
- Linking two consecutive nonmerging magnetic clouds with their solar sources
- Investigating plasma motion of magnetic clouds at 1 AU through a velocity-modified cylindrical force-free flux rope model
- A New Class of Complex Ejecta Resulting from the Interaction of two CMEs and its Expected Geoeffectiveness
- Evolution and Consequences of Interacting CMEs of 2012 November 9-10 using STEREO/SECCHI and In Situ Observations
- Magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the interaction between two interplanetary magnetic clouds and its consequent geoeffectiveness
- Could the collision of CMEs in the heliosphere be super-elastic? --- Validation through three-dimensional simulations
- Morphological and Kinematic Evolution of Three Interacting Coronal Mass Ejections of 2011 February 13-15
- Magnetohydrodynamic simulation of the interaction between two interplanetary magnetic clouds and its consequent geoeffectiveness: 2. Oblique collision
- Magnetohydrodynamic Simulation of the Interaction between Interplanetary Strong Shock and Magnetic Cloud and its Consequent Geoeffectiveness 2: Oblique Collision
- A comparison of reconstruction methods for the estimation of CME kinematics based on SECCHI/HI observations
- On Understanding the Nature of Collision of Coronal Mass Ejections Observed by \textit{STEREO}