Transverse waves are sometimes observed in solar helmet streamers, typically after the passage of a coronal mass ejection (CME). The CME-driven shock wave moves the streamer sideways, and a decaying oscillation of the streamer is observed after the CME passage. Previous works generally reported observations of streamer oscillations taken from a single vantage point (typically the SOHO spacecraft). We conduct a data survey searching for streamer wave events observed by the COR2 coronagraphs onboard the STEREO spacecraft. For the first time, we report observations of streamer wave events from multiple vantage points, by using the COR2 instrument on both STEREO A and B, as well as the SOHO/LASCO C2+C3 coronagraphs. We investigate the properties of streamer waves by comparing the different events and performing a statistical analysis. Common observational features give us additional insight on the physical nature of streamer wave events. The most important conclusion is that there appears to be no relation between the speed of the CME and the phase speed of the resulting streamer wave, indicating that the streamer wave speed is determined by the physical properties of the streamer rather than the properties of the CME. This result makes streamer waves events excellent candidates for coronal seismology studies. From a comparison between the measured phase speeds and the phase speeds calculated from the measured periods and wavelengths, we could determine that the speed of the post-shock solar wind flow in our streamers is around 300 $\mathrm{km \ s}^{-1}$.
Helmet streamers are a prominent manifestation of magnetic structures with current sheets in the solar corona. These large-scale structures are regions with high plasma density, overlying active regions and filament channels. We investigate the three-dimensional (3D) structure of a coronal streamer, observed simultaneously by white-light coronagraphs from two vantage points near quadrature (SOHO/LASCO and STEREO/COR2). We design a forward model based on plausible assumptions about the 3D streamer structure taken from physical models (a plasma slab centered around a current sheet). The streamer…
Using MHD seismology by observed kink waves, the magnetic field profile of a coronal streamer has been investigated. STEREO-B/EUVI temporal image data on 7 March 2012 shows an evolution of two consecutive EUV waves that interact with the footpoint of a coronal streamer evident in the co-spatial and co-temporal STEREO-B/COR-I observations. The evolution of EUV waves is clearly evident in STEREO-B/EUVI, and its energy exchange with coronal streamer generates kink oscillations. We estimate the phase velocities of the kink wave perturbations by tracking it at different heights of the coronal strea…
In this paper, we use coronal and heliospheric images from the STEREO spacecraft to track streamer blobs into the heliosphere and to observe them being swept up and compressed by the fast wind from low-latitude coronal holes. From an analysis of their elongation/time tracks, we discover a 'locus of enhanced visibility' where neighboring blobs pass each other along the line of sight and their corotating spiral is seen edge on. The detailed shape of this locus accounts for a variety of east-west asymmetries and allows us to recognize the spiral of blobs by its signatures in the STEREO images: In…
Context: On 26-27 January 2020, the wide-field imager WISPR on Parker Solar Probe (PSP) observed a coronal mass ejection (CME) from a distance of approximately 30 solar radii as it passed through the instrument's 95 degree field-of-view, providing an unprecedented view of the flux rope morphology of the CME's internal structure. The same CME was seen by STEREO, beginning on 25 January. Aims: Our goal was to understand the origin and determine the trajectory of this CME. Methods: We analyzed data from three well-placed spacecraft: Parker Solar Probe (PSP), Solar Terrestrial Relations Observator…
We present a method that isolates time-varying components from coronagraph and EUV images, allowing sub-streamer transients propagating within streamers to be tracked from the low to high corona. The method uses a temporal bandpass filter with a transmission bandwidth of ~2.5-10 hours that suppresses both high and low frequency variations in observations made by the STEREO/SECCHI suite. We demonstrate that this method proves crucial in linking the low corona where the magnetic field is highly non-radial, to their counterparts in the high corona where the magnetic field follows a radial path th…
During the solar minimum STEREO observations show that the three-dimensional structure of the solar corona can be described well by a tilted bi-polar magnetic configuration. The slow solar wind is modeled using three-fluid model that includes heavy ions, such as He II and O VI. The model is initialized with dipole magnetic field and spherically symmetric density. The resulting steady state non-potential and non-uniform streamer configuration calculated with this model is compared to STEREO observations of the streamer density structure. SOHO/UVCS observations are used to compare the O VI emiss…
On 2014 October 30, a band-splitted type II radio burst associated with a coronal mass ejection (CME) observed by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) occurred over the southeast limb of the Sun. The fast expansion in all directions of the plasma front acted as a piston and drove a spherical fast shock ahead of it, whose outward progression was traced by simultaneous images obtained with the Nançay Radioheliograph (NRH). The geometry of the CME/shock event was recovered through 3D modeling, given the absence of concomitant stereoscopic observation…
Stealth coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are events in which there are almost no observable signatures of the CME eruption in the low corona but often a well-resolved slow flux rope CME observed in the coronagraph data. We present results from a three-dimensional numerical magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) simulation of the 1--2 June 2008 slow streamer blowout CME that Robbrecht et al. (2009) called "the CME from nowhere." We model the global coronal structure using a 1.4 MK isothermal solar wind and a low-order potential field source surface representation of the Carrington Rotation 2070 magnetogram sy…
We report the result of the first search for multipoint in situ and imaging observations of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) starting with the first Solar Orbiter (SolO) data in 2020 April - 2021 April. A data exploration analysis is performed including visualizations of the magnetic field and plasma observations made by the five spacecraft SolO, BepiColombo, Parker Solar Probe (PSP), Wind and STEREO-A, in connection with coronagraph and heliospheric imaging observations from STEREO-A/SECCHI and SOHO/LASCO. We identify ICME events that could be unambiguously followed with the STER…
Key Laboratory of Solar Activity and Space Weather, School of Aerospace, Harbin Institute of Technology, Shenzhen(哈尔滨工业大学深圳航天学院太阳活动与空间天气重点实验室);Centre for Fusion, Space and Astrophysics, Department of Physics, University of Warwick(华威大学物理部聚变、太空与天体物理中心);G-LAMP NEXUS Institute/School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University(庆熙大学太空研究学院 G-LAMP NEXUS 研究所);Centro de Investigacion en Astronomía, Universidad Bernardo O’Higgins(贝尔纳多·奥希金斯大学天文学研究中心);Institute of Solar-Terrestrial Physics SB RAS(俄罗斯科学院西伯利亚分院太阳-地球物理研究所)
Multi-spacecraft observations are used to study the in-situ effects of a large CME erupting from the farside of the Sun on 3 November 2011, with particular emphasis on the associated solar energetic particle (SEP) event. At that time both Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) spacecraft were located more than 90 degrees from Earth and could observe the CME eruption directly, with the CME visible on-disk from STEREO-B and off the limb from STEREO-A. Signatures of pressure variations in the corona such as deflected streamers were seen, indicating the presence of a coronal shock associ…
On 2018 November 5, about 24 hours before the first close perihelion passage of Parker Solar Probe (PSP), a coronal mass ejection (CME) entered the field of view of the inner detector of the Wide-field Imager for Solar PRobe (WISPR) instrument onboard PSP, with the northward component of its trajectory carrying the leading edge of the CME off the top edge of the detector about four hours after its first appearance. We connect this event to a very small jet-like transient observed from 1 au by coronagraphs on both the SOlar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) and the A component of the Solar TE…
Three dimensional electron density distributions in the solar corona are reconstructed for 100 Carrington Rotations (CR 2054$-$2153) during 2007/03$-$2014/08 using the spherically symmetric method from polarized white-light observations with the STEREO/COR1. These three-dimensional electron density distributions are validated by comparison with similar density models derived using other methods such as tomography and a MHD model as well as using data from SOHO/LASCO-C2. Uncertainties in the estimated total mass of the global corona are analyzed based on differences between the density distribu…
The availability of high quality synoptic observations of the EUV and visible corona during the SOHO mission has advanced our understanding of the low corona manifestations of CMEs. The EUV imager/white light coronagraph connection has been proven so powerful, it is routinely assumed that if no EUV signatures are present when a CME is observed by a coronagraph, then the event must originate behind the visible limb. This assumption carries strong implications for space weather forecasting but has not been put to the test. This paper presents the first detailed analysis of a frontside, large-sca…
Between 2008/3/24 and 2008/4/2, the three active regions NOAA active regions 10987, 10988 and 10989 were observed daily by the Synoptic Optical Long-term Investigations of the Sun (SOLIS) Vector Spectro-Magnetograph (VSM) while they traversed the solar disk. We use these measurements and the nonlinear force-free magnetic field code XTRAPOL to reconstruct the coronal magnetic field for each active region and compare model field lines with images from the Solar Terrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO) and Hinode X-ray Telescope (XRT) telescopes. Synoptic maps made from continuous, round-the-cl…
In this study, we investigate an extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wave event on 2010 February 11, which occurred as a limb event from the Earth viewpoint and a disk event from the STEREO--B viewpoint. We use the data obtained by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) in various EUV channels. The EUV wave event was launched by a partial prominence eruption. Similar to some EUV wave events in previous works, this EUV wave event contains a faster wave with a speed of $\sim$445$\pm$6 km s$^{-1}$, which we call coronal Moreton wave, and a slower wave with a spee…
We have studied a complex metric radio event which originated in a compact flare, observed with the ARTEMIS-JLS radiospectro-graph on February 12, 2010. The event was associated with a surge observed at 195 and 304 Å and with a coronal mass ejection observed by instruments on-board STEREO A and B near the East and West limbs respectively. On the disk the event was observed at 10 frequencies by the Nancay Radioheliograph, in Ha by the Catania observatory, in soft x-rays by GOES SXI and Hinode XRT and in hard x-rays by RHESSI. We combined these data, together with MDI longitudinal magnetograms, …
For the past 30+ years, the magnetic expansion factor ($f_s$) has been used in empirical relationships to predict solar wind speed ($v_{obs}$) at 1 AU, based on an inverse relationship between these two quantities. Coronal unipolar streamers (i.e. pseudostreamers) undergo limited field line expansion, resulting in $f_s$-dependent relationships to predict fast wind associated with these structures. However, case studies have shown that in situ observed pseudostreamer solar wind was much slower than that derived with $f_s$. To investigate this further, we conduct a statistical analysis to determ…
Late on July 23, 2012, the STEREO-A spacecraft encountered a fast forward shock driven by a coronal mass ejection launched from the Sun earlier that same day. The estimated travel time of the disturbance ($\sim 20$ hrs), together with the massive magnetic field strengths measured within the ejecta ($> 100$nT), made it one of the most extreme events observed during the space era. In this study, we examine the properties of the shock wave. Because of an instrument malfunction, plasma measurements during the interval surrounding the CME were limited, and our approach has been modified to capitali…