Title: Acceleration of Coronal Mass Ejections and Association with Surface Activity
Author: Werner M. Neupert
Affil: Emergent Information Technologies, Inc.
Email: Werner.Neupert@noaa.gov
Abstract: Knowledge of the acceleration characteristics of CMEs is vital in properly relating CMEs observed above the occulting disks of coronagraphs to surface activity. The EUV Imaging Telescope (EIT) on SOHO provides observations of both material at coronal temperatures and of cool filaments seen in absorption that permit tracking of CMEs in the low corona and associating them with emerging magnetic flux, erupting filaments and solar flares. CME accelerations as high as 0.5 km/s/s, between 100 Mm and 750 Mm above the photosphere, have been inferred for CMEs associated with both active regions and quiescent filament regions on the visible solar disk. These accelerations coincided with rapid increases in the soft X-ray flux (as observed by GOES) and occurred subsequent to filament eruptions that may have been in response to magnetic reconnections at the base of the corona.