SMEI 3D reconstruction of a coronal mass ejection interacting with a corotating solar wind density enhancement: the 2008 April 26 CME

The Astrophysical Journal 724, 829−834, 2010

SMEI 3D reconstruction of a coronal mass ejection interacting with a corotating solar wind density enhancement: the 2008 April 26 CME

B.V. Jackson and A. Buffington
Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Univ. of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

P.P. Hick
Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Univ. of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
San Diego Supercomputer Center, Univ. of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

J.M. Clover
Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Univ. of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA

M.M. Bisi
Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences, Univ. of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA
Inst. of Mathematics and Physics, Aberystwyth Univ., Aberystwyth, UK

D.F. Webb
Inst. for Space Research, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

Abstract

The Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) has recorded the brightness responses of hundreds of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (CMEs) in the interplanetary medium. Using a three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction technique that derives its perspective views from outward-flowing solar wind, analysis of SMEI data has revealed the shapes, extents, and masses of CMEs. Here, for the first time, and using SMEI data, we report on the 3D reconstruction of a CME that intersects a corotating region marked by a curved density enhancement in the ecliptic. Both the CME and the corotating region are reconstructed and demonstrate that the CME disrupts the otherwise regular density pattern of the corotating material. Most of the dense CME material passes north of the ecliptic and east of the Sun–Earth line: thus, in situ measurements in the ecliptic near Earth and at the Solar-TErrestrial RElations Observatory Behind spacecraft show the CME as a minor density increase in the solar wind. The mass of the dense portion of the CME is consistent with that measured by the Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory spacecraft, and is comparable to the masses of many other three-dimensionally reconstructed solar wind features at 1 AU observed in SMEI 3D reconstructions.