1. Study of Plasma Heating Processes in a Coronal Mass Ejection–driven Shock Sheath Region Observed with the Metis Coronagraph.
- Author
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Frassati, Federica, Bemporad, Alessandro, Mancuso, Salvatore, Giordano, Silvio, Andretta, Vincenzo, Burtovoi, Aleksandr, Da Deppo, Vania, Fineschi, Silvano, Grimani, Catia, Guglielmino, Salvo, Heinzel, Petr, Jerse, Giovanna, Landini, Federico, Liberatore, Alessandro, Naletto, Giampiero, Nicolini, Gianalfredo, Pancrazzi, Maurizio, Romano, Paolo, Romoli, Marco, and Russano, Giuliana
- Subjects
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CORONAL mass ejections , *SOLAR radio bursts , *PLASMA materials processing , *ADIABATIC compression , *PLASMA astrophysics , *SUN - Abstract
On 2021 September 28, a C1.6 class flare occurred in active region NOAA 12871, located approximately at 27°S and 51°W on the solar disk with respect to Earth's point of view. This event was followed by a partial halo coronal mass ejection (CME) that caused the deflection of preexisting coronal streamer structures, as observed in visible-light coronagraphic images. An associated type II radio burst was also detected by both space- and ground-based instruments, indicating the presence of a coronal shock propagating into interplanetary space. By using H i Ly α (121.6 nm) observations from the Metis coronagraph on board the Solar Orbiter mission, we demonstrate for the first time the capability of UV imaging to provide, via a Doppler dimming technique, an upper limit estimate of the evolution of the 2D proton kinetic temperature in the CME-driven shock sheath as it passes through the field of view of the instrument. Our results suggest that over the 22 minutes of observations, the shock propagated with a speed decreasing from about 740 ± 110 km s−1 to 400 ± 60 km s−1. At the same time, the postshock proton temperatures peaked at latitudes around the shock nose and decreased with time from about 6.8 ± 1.01 MK to 3.1 ± 0.47 MK. The application of the Rankine–Hugoniot jump conditions demonstrates that these temperatures are higher by a factor of about 2–5 than those expected from simple adiabatic compression, implying that significant shock heating is still going on at these distances. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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