2016/05/04 by Linfeng Wan, Linfeng Wan (万霖丰), Xin Cheng +3
Physics and Astronomy · #Coronal mass ejection #Extreme ultraviolet #Extreme ultraviolet lithography #Front (military) #Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics #Phase (matter) #Plasma #Shock (circulatory) #Shock front #Shock wave #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Tracking (education) #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.3847/0004-637x/826/2/174
11 pages, 7 figures, accepted by ApJ
arxiv created 2016/05/04 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex publication_date 2016/07/29 · arxiv updated 2016/08/17 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
ABSTRACT In this paper, we study the formation and early evolution of a limb coronal mass ejection (CME) and its associated shock wave that occurred on 2014 January 8. The extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images provided by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory disclose that the CME first appears as a bubble-like structure. Subsequently, its expansion forms the CME and causes a quasi-circular EUV wave. Interestingly, both the CME and the wave front are clearly visible at all of the AIA EUV passbands. Through a detailed kinematical analysis, it is found that the expansion of the CME undergoes two phases: a first phase with a strong but transient lateral over-expansion followed by a second phase with a self-similar expansion. The temporal evolution of the expansion velocity coincides very well with the variation of the 25–50 keV hard X-ray flux of the associated flare, which indicates that magnetic reconnection most likely plays an important role in driving the expansion. Moreover, we find that, when the velocity of the CME reaches ∼600 km s −1 , the EUV wave starts to evolve into a shock wave, which is evidenced by the appearance of a type II radio burst. The shock’s formation height is estimated to be ∼0.2 R sun , which is much lower than the height derived previously. Finally, we also study the thermal properties of the CME and the EUV wave. We find that the plasma in the CME leading front and the wave front has a temperature of ∼2 MK, while that in the CME core region and the flare region has a much higher temperature of ≥8 MK.