Mass Loss via Solar Wind and Coronal Mass Ejections During Solar Cycle 23 and 24

Abstract

Similar to the Sun, other stars shed mass and magnetic flux via ubiquitous quasi-steady wind and episodic stellar coronal mass ejections (CMEs). We investigate the mass loss rate via solar wind and CMEs as a function of solar magnetic variability represented in terms of sunspot number and solar X-ray background luminosity. We estimate the contribution of CMEs to the total solar wind mass flux in the ecliptic and beyond, and its variation over different phases of the solar activity cycles. The study exploits the number of sunspots observed, coronagraphic observations of CMEs near the Sun by SOHO/LASCO, in situ observations of the solar wind at 1 AU by WIND, and GOES X-ray flux during solar cycle 23 and 24. We note that the X-ray background luminosity, occurrence rate of CMEs and ICMEs, solar wind mass flux, and associated mass loss rates from the Sun do not decrease as strongly as the sunspot number from the maximum of solar cycle 23 to the next maximum. Our study confirms a true physical increase in CME activity relative to the sunspot number in cycle 24. We show that the CME occurrence rate and associated mass loss rate can be better predicted by X-ray background luminosity than the sunspot number. The solar wind mass loss rate which is an order of magnitude more than the CME mass loss rate shows no obvious dependency on cyclic variation in sunspot number and solar X-ray background luminosity. These results have implications to the study of solar-type stars.

arXiv comment15 pages, 7 figures, Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS)

References in corpus (33)

• Revisiting the Sunspot Number
• Mass loss from hot massive stars
• Self-consistent Coronal Heating and Solar Wind Acceleration from Anisotropic Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence
• Comprehensive Analysis of Coronal Mass Ejection Mass and Energy Properties Over a Full Solar Cycle
• Automated LASCO CME catalog for solar cycle 23: are CMEs scale invariant?
• Different Power-law Indices in the Frequency Distributions of Flares with and without Coronal Mass Ejections
• No Trace Left Behind: Stereo Observation of a Coronal Mass Ejection without Low Coronal Signatures
• Accretion-Powered Stellar Winds II: Numerical Solutions for Stellar Wind Torques
• Connecting Flares and Transient Mass Loss Events in Magnetically Active Stars
• Mass loss in pre-main sequence stars via coronal mass ejections and implications for angular momentum loss
• Solar Flares and Coronal Mass Ejections: A Statistically Determined Flare Flux-CME Mass Correlation
• Statistical Study of Coronal Mass Ejection Source Locations: Understanding CMEs Viewed in Coronagraphs
• Source Regions of Coronal Mass Ejections
• The effects of stellar winds on the magnetospheres and potential habitability of exoplanets
• The Peculiar Behavior of Halo Coronal Mass Ejections in Solar Cycle 24
• Spatial Relationship between Solar Flares and Coronal Mass Ejections
• Solar magnetic activity cycles, coronal potential field models and eruption rates
• A Statistical Study of CME Properties and of the Correlation Between Flares and CMEs over Solar Cycles 23 and 24
• The Independency of Stellar Mass Loss Rates on stellar X-ray Luminosity and Activity Level based on Solar X-ray flux and Solar Wind Observations
• The dependence of stellar mass and angular momentum losses on latitude and on active region and dipolar magnetic fields
• Mass Loss Rates from Coronal Mass Ejections: A Predictive Theoretical Model for Solar-Type Stars
• Interacting coronae of two T Tauri stars: first observational evidence for solar-like helmet streamers
• A Standard Law for the Equatorward Drift of the Sunspot Zones
• Evolution and Consequences of Interacting CMEs of 2012 November 9-10 using STEREO/SECCHI and In Situ Observations
• Estimating arrival time of Earth-directed CMEs at \textit{in-situ} spacecraft using COR & HI observations from STEREO
• A Statistical Study on Solar Active Regions Producing Extremely Fast Coronal Mass Ejections
• CMEs in the Heliosphere: I. A Statistical Analysis of the Observational Properties of CMEs Detected in the Heliosphere from 2007 to 2017 by STEREO/HI-1
• Investigating magnetic activity in very stable stellar magnetic fields: long-term photometric and spectroscopic study of the fully convective M4 dwarf V374 Peg
• Solar Rotation Rate During the Cycle 24 Minimum in Activity
• On the enhanced coronal mass ejection detection rate since the solar cycle 23 polar field reversal
• Assessing the collision nature of coronal mass ejections in the inner heliosphere
• Changes in quasi-periodic variations of solar photospheric fields: precursor to the deep solar minimum in the cycle 23?
• ROSAT observations of V471 Tauri, showing that stellar activity is determined by rotation, not age

Cited by in corpus (13)

• New Observational Constraints on the Winds of M Dwarf Stars
• The Sun and Space Weather
• A census of Coronal Mass Ejections on solar-like stars
• The evolution of CNO elements in galaxies
• One Year in the Life of Young Suns: Data Constrained Corona-Wind Model of kappa1 Ceti
• Estimates of the change rate of solar mass and gravitational constant based on the dynamics of the Solar System
• Direct Detection of Solar Angular Momentum Loss with the Wind Spacecraft
• Active region contributions to the solar wind over multiple solar cycles
• The winds of young Solar-type stars in the Hyades
• Solar Angular Momentum Loss Over the Past Several Millennia
• A holistic approach to understand Helium enrichment in Interplanetary coronal mass ejections: New insights
• Sensitivity of solar wind mass flux to coronal temperature
• A journey of exploration to the polar regions of a star: probing the solar poles and the heliosphere from high helio-latitude