Streamer Blowout Coronal Mass Ejections: Their Properties and Relation to the Coronal Magnetic Field Structure

TL;DR

This study analyzes 909 streamer-blowout CMEs over 20 years, revealing their properties, occurrence patterns, and relation to the solar magnetic field, highlighting their larger size and distinct origins outside active regions.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive statistical analysis of SBOs, linking their properties to the global magnetic field and identifying their likely origin from extended polarity inversion lines.

Findings

SBOs are wider and more massive than average CMEs.

Their occurrence rate doubled from solar cycle 23 to 24.

Most SBOs exhibit flux rope morphology at a higher rate than regular CMEs.

Abstract

We present a comprehensive analysis of a particular class of coronal mass ejection (CME) event, called streamer-blowout CME (SBOs). The events are characterized by a gradual swelling of the overlying streamer, lasting hours to days, followed by a slow, wide CME, generally exhibiting a 3-part structure, which leaves the streamer significantly depleted in its wake. We identify 909 SBO events in the LASCO/C2 observations between 1996 and 2015. The average blowout lasts for 40.5 hours but the evacuation can take days for some events. SBO-CMEs are wider and more massive than the average CME. Their properties generally vary during and between solar cycles. Their minimum (maximum) monthly occurrence rate of one (six) events in cycle 23 has doubled in cycle 24---a probable manifestation of the weaker global fields in the current cycle. The locations of SBOs follow the tilt of the global dipole (but not from 2014 onwards), do not correlate with sunspot numbers and exhibit flux rope morphology at a much higher rate (61%) than regular CMEs (40%). We propose that these characteristics are consistent with SBOs arising from extended polarity inversion lines outside active regions (e.g. quiet sun and polar crown filaments) through the release, via reconnection, of magnetic energy, likely accumulated via differential rotation.