Association of CMEs with solar surface activity during the rise and maximum phases of solar cycles 23 and 24

The cyclical behaviors of sunspots, flares and coronal mass ejections （CMEs） for 54 months from 2008 November to 2013 April after the onset of Solar Cycle （SC） 24 are compared, for the first time, with those of SC 23 from 1996 November to 2001 April. The results are summarized below. （i） During the maximum phase, the number of sunspots in SC 24 is significantly smaller than that for SC 23 and the number of flares in SC 24 is comparable to that of SC 23. （ii） The number of CMEs in SC 24 is larger than that in SC 23 and the speed of CMEs in SC 24 is smaller than that of SC 23 during the maximum phase. We individually survey all the CMEs （1647 CMEs） from 2010 June to 2011 June. A total of 161 CMEs associated with so- lar surface activity events can be identified. About 45% of CMEs are associated with quiescent prominence eruptions, 27% of CMEs only with solar flares, 19% of CMEs with both active-region prominence eruptions and solar flares, and 9% of CMEs only with active-region prominence eruptions. Comparing the association of the CMEs and their source regions in SC 24 with that in SC 23, we notice that the characteristics of source regions for CMEs during SC 24 may be different from those of SC 23.

Radio observations of the fine structure inside a post-CME current sheet

A solar radio burst was observed in a coronal mass ejection/flare event by the Solar Broadband Radio Spectrometer at the Huairou Solar Observing Station on2004 December 1. The data exhibited various patterns of plasma motions, suggestive of the interaction between sunward moving plasmoids and the flare loop system during the impulsive phase of the event. In addition to the radio data, the associated whitelight, Hα, extreme ultraviolet light, and soft and hard X-rays were also studied.

Energy spectral property in an isolated CME-driven shock

Observations from multiple spacecraft show that there are energy spectral ＂breaks＂ at 1-10 MeV in some large CME-driven shocks. However, numerical models can hardly simulate this property due to high computational expense. The present paper focuses on analyzing these energy spectral ＂breaks＂ by Monte Carlo particle simulations of an isolated CME-driven shock. Taking the 2006 Dec 14 CME-driven shock as an example, we investigate the formation of this energy spectral property. For this purpose, we apply different values for the scattering time in our isolated shock model to obtain the highest energy ＂tails,＂ which can potentially exceed the ＂break＂ energy range. However, we have not found the highest energy ＂tails＂ beyond the ＂break＂ energy range, but instead find that the highest energy ＂tails＂ reach saturation near the range of energy at 5 MeV. So, we believe that there exists an energy spectral ＂cut off＂ in an isolated shock. If there is no interaction with another shock, there would not be formation of the energy spectral ＂break＂ property.

Analysis of the CME-driven shock from the SEP event that occurred on 2006 December 14

In a solar flare or coronal mass ejection （CME）, observations of the subse- quent interplanetary shock provide us with strong evidence of particle acceleration to energies of multiple MeV, even up to GeV. Diffusive shock acceleration is an efficient mechanism for particle acceleration. For investigating the shock structure, the energy injection and energy spectrum ofa CME-driven shock, we perform a dynamical Monte Carlo simulation of the CME-driven shock that occurred on 2006 December 14 using an anisotropic scattering law. The simulated results of the shock＇s fine structure, par- ticle injection, and energy spectrum are presented. We find that our simulation results give a good fit to the observations from multiple spacecraft.

Recent progress of solar physics research in China

Owing to the largely improved facilities and working conditions, solar physics research in China has recently shown marked development. This paper reports on the recent progress of solar physics research in China's Mainland, mainly focusing on several hot issues, including instrumentations, magnetic field observations and research, solar flares, filaments and their eruptions, coronal mass ejections and related processes, as well as active regions and the corona, small-scale phenomena, solar activity and its predictions. A vision of the future is also described.

Kinematics and amplitude evolution of global coronal extreme ultraviolet waves

With the observations of the Solar-Terrestrial Relations Observatory （STEREO） and the Solar Dynamics Observatory （SDO）, we analyze in detail the kine- matics of global coronal waves together with their intensity amplitudes （so-called ＂perturbation profiles＂）. We use a semi-automatic method to investigate the pertur- bation profiles of coronal waves. The location and amplitude of the coronal waves are calculated over a 30~ sector on the sphere, where the wave signal is strongest. The position with the strongest perturbation at each time is considered as the location of the wave front. In all four events, the wave velocities vary with time for most of their lifetime, up to 15 rain, while in the event observed by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly there is at, additional early phase with a much higher velocity. The velocity varies greatly between different waves from 216 to 440 km s-1. The velocity of the two waves initially increases, subsequently decreases, and then increases again. Two other waves show a deceleration followed by an acceleration. Three categories of am- plitude evolution of global coronal waves are found for the four events. The first is that the amplitude only shows a decrease. The second is that the amplitude initially increases and then decreases, and the third is that the amplitude shows an orderly in- crease, a decrease, an increase again and then a decrease. All the extreme ultraviolet waves show a decrease in amplitude while propagating farther away, probably because the driver of the global coronal wave （coronal mass ejection） is moving farther away from the solar surface.

The inversion of the real kinematic properties of coronal mass ejections by forward modeling

Kinematic properties of coronal mass ejections （CMEs） suffer from projection effects,and it is expected that the real velocity should be larger and the real angular width should be smaller than the apparent values.Several attempts have been taken to correct the projection effects,which however led to an inflated average velocity probably due to the biased choice of CME events.In order to estimate the overall influence of the projection effects on the kinematic properties of the CMEs,we perform a forward modeling of real distributions of CME properties,such as the velocity,the angular width,and the latitude,by requiring their projected distributions to best match observations.Such a matching is conducted by Monte Carlo simulations.According to the derived real distributions,we found that （1） the average real velocity of all non-full-halo CMEs is about 514 km s-1,and the average real angular width is about 33°,in contrast to the corresponding apparent values of 418 km s-1 and 42.7° in observations;（2） For the CMEs with the angular width in the range of 20°-120°,the average real velocity is 510 km s-1 and the average real angular width is 43.4°,in contrast to the corresponding apparent values of 392 km s-1 and 52° in observations.

Geoeffectiveness of the coronal mass ejections associated with solar proton events

The intensity-time profiles of solar proton events（SPEs） are grouped into three types in the present study. The Type-I means that the intensity-time profile of an SPE has one peak, which occurs shortly after the associated solar flare and coronal mass ejection（CME）. The Type-II means that the SPE profile has two peaks： the first peak occurs shortly after the solar eruption, the second peak occurs at the time when the CME-driven shock reaches the Earth, and the intensity of the second peak is lower than the first one.If the intensity of the second peak is higher than the first one, or the SPE intensity increases continuously until the CME-driven shock reaches the Earth, this kind of intensity-time profile is defined as Type-III. It is found that most CMEs associated with Type-I SPEs have no geoeffectiveness and only a small part of CMEs associated with Type-I SPEs can produce minor（–50 n T ≤ Dst ≤–30 n T） or moderate geomagnetic storms（–100 n T≤ Dst ≤–50 n T）, but never an intense geomagnetic storm（–200 n T ≤ Dst 〈-100 n T）. However,most of the CMEs associated with Type-II and Type-III SPEs can produce intense or great geomagnetic storms（Dst ≤-200 n T）. The solar wind structures responsible for the geomagnetic storms associated with SPEs with different intensity-time profiles have also been investigated and discussed.