D4.2

Lead Beneficiary: HVAR

Beneficiaries involved: DTU, HVAR, KU Leuven, MTA-KFKI-RMKI, UGOE, UOulu, UNIGRAZ

Due Date: month 24

Goal

Report on results of Task 4.1 "Interplanetary Propagation", which includes: observation and modeling of the interplanetary propagation of CMEs and prediction of their arrival times; ICME related cosmic ray variations; the relationship between coronal holes and the near-Earth high-speed streams and related geomagnetic disturbances.

Successes

In December 2008, a CME from the low corona to the Earth magnetosphere has been tracked for the first time ever. The analysis of this event is in progress (UGOE).

Progress so far

In the Sun-Earth event related to the CME of 25 July 2004, the observed transit time and 1 AU velocity were compared with the outcome of the drag-based analytical model and the numerical code ENLIL, where coronagraphic measurements are used for model input (collaboration HVAR and DTU). Both models showed a very good performance in predicting the arrival of the interplanetary disturbance. Analytical-model runs are performed also for the other 6 events from the WP4 event-list (comparison with observations is in progress). Currently, we are preparing a paper where the analytical drag-based model of the interplanetary propagation of CMEs will be presented (to be submitted soon to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics). Analysis of the ENLIL results for the 25 July 2004 event will be presented in a separate paper (also in preparation).

At UGOE about 80 CMEs were studied stereoscopically employing STEREO/SECCHI data. For the first time CMEs from the Sun up to distances of ~ 1 AU have been directly observed with STEREO/SECCHI, and their in-situ properties for the cases they passed the orbits of STEREO A and B were measured.

At KU Leuven plasma flow parameters around the stationary and expanding cylindrical plasma cloud were studied, as a preparation for the investigating the dynamics of the magnetic cloud by using the self-similar approach. Furthermore, the kinetic simulation of the decay of turbulence in the corona and in solar wind is set up, with new particle-in-cell-code Parsek3D. Number of cases were run to test the ability of having realistic parameters and the ability of the model to preserve invariant quantities such as energy and momentum.

At KFKI RMKI the analysis of two solar energetic particle events from the WP4 event list has begun using SOHO COSTEP and STEREO SEPT energetic particle data (17 January 2005 and 19 May 2007). The time profiles of protons with energies 0.125 to 32 MeV were compared with the prediction of the Solar Particle Engineering Code.

The relationship between coronal hole areas/positions and the characteristics of the associated solar wind high speed streams and related geomagnetic disturbances is analyzed for a CME-quiet interval in 2005, based on the 6-hour time resolution (collaboration of HVAR and UNIGRAZ). The same period is used to investigate the high-speed-stream related modulation of the cosmic ray flux (a paper in preparation).

UOulu has analysed the manually compiled CDAW CME catalog and the automatically compiled CACTus CME catalog (both based on SOHO LASCO data). Despite significant differences in these datasets some new patterns in the temporal and spatial occurrence of CMEs have been found that are common to both datasets.

List of people working on this deliverable: DTU: Susanne Vennerstrom, Thea Falkenberg; HVAR: Bojan Vrsnak, Tomislav Zic, Jasa Calogovic (& non-soteria Darije Maricic, Dijana Vrbanec); KU Leuven: Giovanni Lapenta, Giorgi Dalakishvili, Stefaan Poeds i Giga Gogoberidze; MTA-KFKI-RMKI: Karoly Kecskemety, Peter Kiraly; UOulu: Kalevi Juhani Mursula, Ilpo Ilmari Virtanen; UGOE: Volker Bothmer; UNIGRAZ: Astrid Veronig, Manuela Temmer.