Global energetics of solar flares and coronal mass ejections

Aschwanden, M. J. et al. (2019) Global energetics of solar flares and coronal mass ejections. Journal of Physics: Conference Series, 1332(1), 012002. (doi: 10.1088/1742-6596/1332/1/012002)

Abstract

We investigate the global energetics and energy closure of various physical processes that are energetically important in solar flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which includes: magnetic energies, thermal energies, nonthermal energies (particle acceleration), direct and indirect plasma heating processes, kinetic CME energies, gravitational CME energies, aerodynamic drag of CMEs, solar energetic particle events, EUV and soft X-ray radiation, white-light, and bolometric energies. Statistics on these forms of energies is obtained from 400 GOES M- and X-class events during the first 3.5 years of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission. A primary test addressed in this study is the closure of the various energies, such as the equivalence of the dissipated magnetic energies and the primary dissipated are energies (accelerated particles, direct heating, CME acceleration), which faciliate the energy of secondary processes (plasma heating, shock acceleration) and interactions with the solar wind (aerodynamic drag). Our study demonstrates energy closure in the statistical average, while individual events may have considerable uncertainties, requiring improved nonlinear force-free field models, and particle acceleration models with observationally constrained low-energy cutoffs.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Kontar, Professor Eduard
• Authors: Aschwanden, M. J., Caspi, A., Cohen, C. M.S., Holman, G., Jing, J., Kretzschmar, M., Kontar, E. P., McTiernan, J. M., Mewaldt, R. A., O’Flannagain, A., Richardson, I. G., Ryan, D., Warren, H. P., and Xu, Y.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
• Journal Name: Journal of Physics: Conference Series
• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• ISSN: 1742-6588
• ISSN (Online): 1742-6596
• Published Online: 14 November 2019
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2019 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Journal of Physics: Conference Series 1332(1): 012002
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License