Energy Partition in Flare-CME Events

Ryoma Matsuura
Montana State University Solar Physics REU 2021
Adviser: Dr. Chunming Zhu

About Me

I am a junior at Trinity University, and I plan on majoring in Physics and Astronomy, as well as Computing as a Second Major with an Astronomy minor. This summer, I participated in the Solar Physics REU program at Montana State University in order to explore my interest in and learn about the field of solar physics, as well as get experience in data analysis and science research in general.

Project Description

Example of a solar flare (ribbon) Example of a CME mass image Solar flares are sudden explosions near the sunspots that are made up of flare ribbons and flare loops that evolve independently. During solar flares, enormous amounts of energy are released, increasing the emission of light across the electromagnetic spectrum. These solar flares are sometimes accompanied by coronal mass ejections, or CMEs or short. CMEs are another type of solar explosion where giant bubbles of plasma and magnetic field are released at very high speeds. For my project, I studied the energy partition in these events where both solar flares and CMEs occur together. In other words, my goal was to answer the question "How much energy is released through flares, and how much is released through CMEs?", or more specifically, how the flare energy radiated from the corona compares with that from the transition region, and how the mechanical energy of the ejected CMEs splits into kinetic energy and potential energy. (Maybe add images of flare/cme/sdo/etc.)

In order to accomplish this goal, I used observations from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and the Enthalpy-Based Thermal Evolution of Loops (EBTEL) model to calculate the energy input of the flare loops. In addition to that, I estimated the mechanical energy of the CMEs associated with those flares by calcualting the mass and velocity using observations from Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO). After calculating the energies for each flare-CME pairs, I studied the energy partition based on the results.

After the program, I plan on presenting my work at American Geophysical Union (AGU) fall meeting this December at New Orleans, LA. Find more information on the AGU meeting here.

Progress Reports / Presentations

Every two weeks, I presented and reported my progress to other interns and mentors. Short descriptions of my progress for every two weeks as well as the presentation slides used can be found by clicking on the links below.

Contact Info

Email: rmatsuu1@trinity.edu
LinkedIn: See Profile