Introduction to 2004 Research

Introduction to Research

The fundamental question our research hopes to answer is whether there is a difference between magnetic clouds occurring from disappearing filaments and those originating from sigmoids, and if so, can those sources of these magnetic clouds be used as accurate predictors for the severity of the ensuing magnetic storms. Also, by modeling these magnetic clouds and the magnetic structures from which they originate, can we determine, before the eruption even occurs on the surface of the Sun, what the orientation and composition of the cloud will be?

This summer we focused on multiple aspects of the original proposal.

First, we created models to predict the transit time of magnetic clouds from the Sun to 1 AU and performed goodness-of-fit tests on them to see which ones most accurately matched our observations. This has helped us to determine the best way to track a magnetic cloud back to its eruption time on the Sun.

Next, in an effort to better understand how the strength of the CME's magnetic field, in both the magnetic cloud and solar photosphere, is related to CME propagation, we determined the Spearman rank order correlation between the strength of the magnetic field in clouds arriving at 1 AU and their corresponding transit speeds, LASCO speeds and LASCO accelerations.

Also, this summer, we began to focus on the magnetic structure of the progenitor before it erupted as well as the overall global magnetic field, building tools along the way to help us understand what is going on. The most important tool we have developed so far has been a program that extrapolates the magnetic field of a region on the Sun.

Finally, tying into the research we did last summer, we compared the average hydrogen densities, velocities, radial temperatures and alpha to proton ratios of filaments to those of sigmoids in order to see if there are significant differences.

For more background information on the Sun, filaments, sigmoids and coronal mass ejections, as well as my research project for the summer of 2003, please visit my other research webpage.