[43.05] Preliminary Three Dimensional Reconstruction of CMEs Using Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) Data

AAS 205th Meeting, 9-13 January 2005
Session 43 The Sun, Heliosphere and Planets
Oral, Monday, January 10, 2005, 2:00-3:30pm, Royal Palm 4-6

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[43.05] Preliminary Three Dimensional Reconstruction of CMEs Using Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) Data

B.V. Jackson, A. Buffington, P.P. Hick, X. Wang (CASS/UCSD)

White-light Thomson scattering observations from the Solar Mass Ejection Imager (SMEI) have recorded the inner heliospheric response to the October 28, 2003 CME. Here we detail the extent of this particular CME event in SMEI observations, and we show how we are able to track the event from its first measurement approximately 20^o from the solar disk until it fades away in the SMEI 180^o field of view. Several portions of this CME that can be tracked into the interplanetary medium are associated with the initial CME response and the underlying erupting prominence structure. We employ a 3D reconstruction technique that provides perspective views from outward-flowing solar wind as observed from Earth. This is accomplished by iteratively fitting the parameters of a kinematic solar wind density model to the SMEI white light observations and to Solar-Terrestrial Environment Laboratory (STELab), interplanetary scintillation (IPS) velocity data. This 3D modeling technique enables separating the true heliospheric response in SMEI from background noise, and reconstructing the 3D heliospheric structure as a function of time. These reconstructions allow both separation of the 28 October CME from other nearby heliospheric structure and a determination of its mass. The preliminary SMEI white light calibration indicates a total mass of 6 X 10¹⁶g for the ejecta associated with the prominence eruption. The total mass of this CME including possible associated nearby structures may have been as much as ~2 X 10¹⁷g of inner heliospheric response spread over much of the Earthward-facing hemisphere.

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