A Statistical Analysis of the Solar Phenomena Associated with Global EUV Waves

TL;DR

This study analyzes the properties and occurrence of global EUV waves associated with solar eruptions using SDO data, revealing relationships between wave velocity, acceleration, and the erupting active region's structure.

Contribution

It applies a new algorithm to identify and track global EUV waves, providing statistical insights into their properties and associations with solar flare characteristics.

Findings

45% of studied flares have associated global waves

Faster waves tend to decelerate more strongly

No clear link between waves and radio bursts or energetic particles

Abstract

Solar eruptions are the most spectacular events in our solar system and are associated with many different signatures of energy release including solar flares, coronal mass ejections, global waves, radio emission and accelerated particles. Here, we apply the Coronal Pulse Identification and Tracking Algorithm (CorPITA) to the high cadence synoptic data provided by the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) to identify and track global waves observed by SDO. 164 of the 362 solar flare events studied (45%) are found to have associated global waves with no waves found for the remaining 198 (55%). A clear linear relationship was found between the median initial velocity and the acceleration of the waves, with faster waves exhibiting a stronger deceleration (consistent with previous results). No clear relationship was found between global waves and type II radio bursts, electrons or protons detected in-situ near Earth. While no relationship was found between the wave properties and the associated flare size (with waves produced by flares from B to X-class), more than a quarter of the active regions studied were found to produce more than one wave event. These results suggest that the presence of a global wave in a solar eruption is most likely determined by the structure and connectivity of the erupting active region and the surrounding quiet solar corona rather than by the amount of free energy available within the active region.