Observations of Two Successive EUV Waves and their Mode Conversion

TL;DR

This study reports the observation of two successive EUV waves associated with filament eruptions and flares, demonstrating mode conversion from fast to slow MHD waves during interactions with a helmet streamer.

Contribution

It provides the first observational evidence of mode conversion from fast to slow MHD waves in EUV wave events on the Sun.

Findings

EUV waves traveled at ~675 and 640 km/s.

Slow waves (~150 km/s) observed along helmet streamer.

Mode conversion from fast to slow MHD waves confirmed.

Abstract

In this paper, we present the observations of two successive fast-mode extreme ultraviolet (EUV) wave events observed on 2016 July 23. Both fast-mode waves were observed by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) instrument on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) satellite, with a traveling speed of ~ 675 and 640 km/s, respectively. These two wave events were associated with two filament eruptions and two GOES M-class solar flares from the NOAA active region 12565, which was located near the western limb. The EUV waves mainly move toward the south direction. We observed the interaction of the EUV waves with a helmet streamer further away in the south. When either or one of the EUV waves penetrates into the helmet streamer, a slowly propagating wave with a traveling speed of ~ 150 km/s is observed along the streamer. We suggest that the slowly-moving waves are slow-mode waves, and interpret this phenomenon as the magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave mode conversion from the fast mode to the slow mode. Besides, we observed several stationary fronts in the north and south of the source region.