Evolution and Consequences of Interacting CMEs of 2012 November 9-10 using STEREO/SECCHI and In Situ Observations

TL;DR

This study analyzes the interaction of two CMEs from November 2012 using STEREO/SECCHI and WIND data, revealing how CME collisions affect their kinematics, arrival times, and geomagnetic impacts.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of CME-CME interaction dynamics and their effects on space weather prediction accuracy using combined remote sensing and in situ data.

Findings

CME collision was close to perfectly inelastic.

Post-interaction CME speeds improved arrival time predictions.

Interaction caused heating, compression, and altered geomagnetic effects.

Abstract

Understanding of the kinematic evolution of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) in the heliosphere is important to estimate their arrival time at the Earth. It is found that kinematics of CMEs can change when they interact or collide with each other as they propagate in the heliosphere. In this paper, we analyze the collision and post-interaction characteristics of two Earth-directed CMEs, launched successively on 2012 November 9 and 10, using white light imaging observations from STEREO/SECCHI and in situ observations taken from WIND spacecraft. We tracked two density enhanced features associated with leading and trailing edge of November 9 CME and one density enhanced feature associated with leading edge of November 10 CME by constructing J-maps. We found that the leading edge of November 10 CME interacted with the trailing edge of November 9 CME. We also estimated the kinematics of these features of the CMEs and found a significant change in their dynamics after interaction. In in situ observations, we identified distinct structures associated with interacted CMEs and also noticed their heating and compression as signatures of CME-CME interaction. Our analysis shows an improvement in arrival time prediction of CMEs using their post-collision dynamics than using pre-collision dynamics. Estimating the true masses and speeds of these colliding CMEs, we investigated the nature of observed collision which is found to be close to perfectly inelastic. The investigation also places in perspective the geomagnetic consequences of the two CMEs and their interaction in terms of occurrence of geomagnetic storm and triggering of magnetospheric substorms.