Global Energetics of Solar Flares: VI. Refined Energetics of Coronal Mass Ejections

Markus J. Aschwanden

Published 2017-04-06Version 1

In this study we refine a CME model presented in an earlier study on the global energetics of solar flares and associated CMEs, and apply it to all (860) GOES M- and X-class flare events observed during the first 7 years (2010-2016) of the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) mission, which doubles the statistics of the earlier study. The model refinements include: (1) the CME geometry in terms of a 3D sphere undergoing self-similar adiabatic expansion; (2) the inclusion of solar gravitational deceleration during the acceleration and propagation of the CME, which discriminates eruptive and confined CMEs; (4) a self-consistent relationship between the CME center-of-mass motion detected during EUV dimming and the leading-edge motion observed in white-light coronagraphs; (5) the equi-partition of the CME kinetic and thermal energy; and (6) the Rosner-Tucker-Vaiana (RTV) scaling law. The refined CME model is entirely based on EUV dimming observations (using AIA/SDO data) and complements the traditional white-light scattering model (using LASCO/SOHO data), and both models are independently capable to determine fundamental CME parameters such as the CME mass, speed, and energy. Comparing the two methods we find that: (1) LASCO is less sensitive than AIA in detecting CMEs (in 24$\%$ of the cases); (2) CME masses below $m_{cme} \sim 10^{14}$ g are under-estimated by LASCO; (3) AIA and LASCO masses, speeds, and energy agree closely in the statistical mean after elimination of outliers; (4) the CMEs parameters of the speed $v$, emission measure-weighted flare peak temperature $T_e$, and length scale $L$ are consistent with the following scaling laws (derived from first principles): $v \propto T_e^{1/2}$, $v \propto (m_{cme})^{1/4}$, and $m_{cme} \propto L^2$.