CME acceleration and non-thermal flare characteristics

TL;DR

This study explores the connection between CME acceleration phases and associated flare particle acceleration, revealing strong correlations suggesting a shared energy source, likely magnetic reconnection, with implications for understanding solar eruptive events.

Contribution

It provides new quantitative analysis linking CME kinematics with flare-accelerated electron spectra, highlighting the role of magnetic reconnection and eruption height in particle acceleration.

Findings

CME peak velocity correlates strongly with total energy in accelerated electrons (c=0.85).

Higher CME initiation height correlates with more efficient electron acceleration (c=0.8).

Most non-thermal flare emissions start after CME acceleration, indicating a current sheet length of 21 ± 7 Mm.

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between the main acceleration phase of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and the particle acceleration in the associated flares as evidenced in RHESSI non-thermal X-rays for a set of 37 impulsive flare-CME events. CME peak velocity and peak acceleration yield distinct correlations with various parameters characterizing the flare-accelerated electron spectra. The highest correlation coefficient is obtained for the relation of the CME peak velocity and the total energy in accelerated electrons (c = 0.85), supporting the idea that the acceleration of the CME and the particle acceleration in the associated flare draw their energy from a common source, probably magnetic reconnection in the current sheet behind the erupting structure. In general, the CME peak velocity shows somewhat higher correlations with the non-thermal flare parameters than the CME peak acceleration, except for the spectral index of the accelerated electron spectrum which yields a higher correlation with the CME peak acceleration (c = -0.6), indicating that the hardness of the flare-accelerated electron spectrum is tightly coupled to the impulsive acceleration process of the rising CME structure. We also obtained high correlations between the CME initiation height $h_0$ and the non-thermal flare parameters, with the highest correlation of $h_0$ to the spectral index of flare-accelerated electrons (c = 0.8). This means that CMEs erupting at low coronal heights, i.e.\ in regions of stronger magnetic fields, are accompanied with flares which are more efficient to accelerate electrons to high energies. In the majority of events (80%), the non-thermal flare emission starts after the CME acceleration (6 min), giving a current sheet length at the onset of magnetic reconnection of 21 \pm 7 Mm. The flare HXR peaks are well synchronized with the peak of the CME acceleration profile.