Large-scale Coronal Propagating Fronts in Solar Eruptions as Observed by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly on Board the Solar Dynamics Observatory\,--\,An Ensemble Study

TL;DR

This study analyzes 138 large-scale coronal propagating fronts observed by SDO/AIA, examining their speeds, associations with flares, CMEs, and radio bursts, revealing that these fronts often move faster than previously observed EIT waves and are not strongly correlated with flare or CME magnitudes.

Contribution

The paper provides a comprehensive analysis of large-scale coronal propagating fronts using high-resolution SDO/AIA data, highlighting their higher speeds and weak correlations with other solar activity indicators.

Findings

LCPFs often have higher speeds than EIT waves.

No strong correlation between LCPF speeds and flare or CME magnitudes.

LCPF speeds are not strongly associated with type II radio bursts.

Abstract

This paper presents a study of a large sample of global disturbances in the solar corona with characteristic propagating fronts as intensity enhancement, similar to the phenomena that have often been referred to as EIT waves or EUV waves. Now Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) images obtained by the {\it Atmospheric Imaging Assembly} (AIA) on board the {\it Solar Dynamics Observatory} (SDO) provide a significantly improved view of these large-scale coronal propagating fronts (LCPFs). Between April 2010 and January 2013, a total of 171 LCPFs have been identified through visual inspection of AIA images in the 193 \AA\ channel. Here we focus on the 138 LCPFs that are seen to propagate across the solar disk, first studying how they are associated with flares, coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and type II radio bursts. We measure the speed of the LCPF in various directions until it is clearly altered by active regions or coronal holes. The highest speed is extracted for each LCPF. It is often considerably higher than EIT waves. We do not find a pattern where faster LCPFs decelerate and slow LCPFs accelerate. Furthermore, the speeds are not strongly correlated with the flare intensity or CME magnitude, nor do they show an association with type II bursts. We do not find a good correlation either between the speeds of LCPFs and CMEs in a subset of 86 LCPFs observed by one or both of the {\it Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory} (STEREO) spacecraft as limb events.