A Coronal Mass Ejection Source Region Catalog and Their Associated Properties

Abstract

The primary objective of this study is to connect coronal mass ejections (CMEs) to their source regions, primarily to create a CME source region catalog, and secondarily to probe the influence that the source regions have on the different statistical properties of CMEs. We create a source region catalog for 3327 CMEs from 1998 to 2017, thus capturing the different phases of cycles 23 and 24. The identified source regions are segregated into three classes—active regions, prominence eruptions, and active prominences—while the CMEs are segregated into slow and fast groups, based on their average projected speeds. We find the contributions of these three source region types to the occurrences of slow and fast CMEs to be different in the above period. A study of the distribution of the average speeds reveals different power laws for CMEs originating from different sources, and the power laws are different during the different phases of cycles 23 and 24. A study of the statistical latitudinal deflections shows equatorward deflections, while the magnitudes of the deflections again bear imprints of the source regions. An east–west asymmetry is also noted, particularly in the rising phase of cycle 23, with the presence of active longitudes for the CMEs, with a preference toward the western part of the Sun. Our results show that different aspects of CME kinematics bear strong imprints of the source regions they originate from, thus indicating the existence of different ejection and/or propagation mechanisms of these CMEs.

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

“…K-Cor being a ground-based facility, data acquisition is restricted to only a few hours during the day, which further constrained the event selection. To identify the source regions of the CMEs, we follow the methodology of Pant et al (2021) and Majumdar et al (2023) on the SWAP and AIA images, and the identified source regions are shown in Table 1. The ARs are the usual flaring regions showing bright emission in extremeultraviolet wavelengths, the prominences that erupt from the quiet Sun regions are denoted as PEs, and the prominences whose footpoints are rooted in an AR are classified as APs.…”

“…The impulsive CMEs tend to originate from the active regions (ARs) on the Sun, while the gradual CMEs are connected to erupting prominences. This distinction is reflected in different aspects of the kinematics of these CMEs (see Majumdar et al 2021;Pant et al 2021) and in various statistical properties, as recently pointed out based on a CME source region catalog by Majumdar et al (2023). Hence, whether any difference in the velocity dispersion is seen for impulsive and gradual CMEs is worth studying.…”

Solar Energetic Particle and the Heliospheric Current Sheet

“…In addition, the HCS is oriented along the Parker spiral field on average at 1 au (e.g., Liou & Wu 2021). Thus interactions of the HCS with outgoing solar transient events, such as CMEs, are likely, especially when most CMEs take place at low latitudes (Majumdar et al 2023). When an observer is located at a different magnetic hemisphere from the source of SEPs, i.e., separated by the HCS, reduced or no SEP flux can result if the HCS can inhibit crossings of SEPs.…”