Solar Physics Division Meeting 2000, June 19-22
Session 2. Corona, Solar Wind, Flares, CMEs, Solar-stellar, Instrumentation, Other
Display, Chair: J. Krall, Monday-Thursday, June 19, 2000, 8:00am-6:00pm, Forum Ballroom

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[2.76] Observational Signatures of the Onset of Coronal Mass Ejections

N. V. Nitta (LMSAL)

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are observed by coronagraphs above their occulting disks. Therefore it is in principle not straightforward to identify CME signatures in the lower corona or below, especially at the onset, unless they are located near the limb and observed in good temporal resolution. For example, a bright cusp structure in soft X-rays is often considered to result from an eruptive event, but the cusp does not always point to the direction the associated CME emerges, suggesting that unknown 3-D geometrical effects play an important role. In this presentation, we select from the SoHO/LASCO database a small number of well-observed CMEs that are known to be of disk origin, and try to find signatures in multi-wavelengths that may represent the onset of CMEs. We analyze data in soft X-rays (Yohkoh/SXT), EUV (SoHO/EIT and TRACE) and H-alpha (SOON). The work is expected to further calibrate non-coronagraph observations of ``CMEs'' and specifically to lead to a better understanding of the role of flares in the CME initiation.


The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: nitta@lmsal.com

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