Probing Velocity Dispersion Inside Coronal Mass Ejections: New Insights on Their Initiation

Abstract

This work studies the kinematics of the leading edge and the core of six coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the combined field of view of Sun Watcher using Active Pixel System detector and Image Processing (SWAP) on board PRoject for On-Board Autonomy (PROBA-2) and the ground-based K-Cor coronagraph of the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory. We report, for the first time, on the existence of a critical height h _c , which marks the onset of velocity dispersion inside the CME. This height for the studied events lies between 1.4 and 1.8 R _⊙ , in the inner corona. We find the critical heights to be relatively higher for gradual CMEs, as compared to impulsive ones, indicating that the early initiation of these two classes might be different physically. We find several interesting imprints of the velocity dispersion on CME kinematics. The critical height is strongly correlated with the flux-rope minor radius and the mass of the CME. Also, the magnitude of the velocity dispersion shows a reasonable positive correlation with the above two parameters. We believe these results will advance our understanding of CME initiation mechanisms and will help provide improved constraints on CME initiation models.

Keywords

• Solar coronal mass ejections