The Formation and Early Evolution of a Coronal Mass Ejection and its Associated Shock Wave on 2014 January 8

TL;DR

This study analyzes the formation, evolution, and shock wave development of a 2014 January 8 CME using EUV imaging, revealing phases of expansion, the role of magnetic reconnection, and thermal properties of the CME and wave.

Contribution

It provides detailed kinematic analysis of CME expansion phases, links CME velocity to shock formation, and estimates shock formation height lower than previous studies.

Findings

CME first appears as a bubble-like structure in EUV images.

CME expansion involves a transient lateral over-expansion followed by self-similar growth.

Shock wave forms when CME reaches ~600 km/s, evidenced by type II radio burst.

Abstract

In this paper, we study the formation and early evolution of a limb coronal mass ejection (CME) and its associated shock wave that occurred on 2014 January 8. The extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images provided by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board \textit{Solar Dynamics Observatory} disclose that the CME first appears as a bubble-like structure. Subsequently, its expansion forms the CME and causes a quasi-circular EUV wave. Interestingly, both the CME and the wave front are clearly visible at all of the AIA EUV passbands. Through a detailed kinematical analysis, it is found that the expansion of the CME undergoes two phases: a first phase with a strong but transient lateral over-expansion followed by a second phase with a self-similar expansion. The temporal evolution of the expansion velocity coincides very well with the variation of the 25--50 keV hard X-ray flux of the associated flare, which indicates that magnetic reconnection most likely plays an important role in driving the expansion. Moreover, we find that, when the velocity of the CME reaches $\sim$600 km s$^{-1}$, the EUV wave starts to evolve into a shock wave, which is evidenced by the appearance of a type II radio burst. The shock's formation height is estimated to be $\sim$0.2$R_{sun}$, which is much lower than the height derived previously. Finally, we also study the thermal properties of the CME and the EUV wave. We find that the plasma in the CME leading front and the wave front has a temperature of $\sim$2 MK, while that in the CME core region and the flare region has a much higher temperature of $\ge$8 MK.