Analysis of solar eruptions deflecting in the low corona: influence of the magnetic environment

TL;DR

This study introduces a new method to analyze how magnetic topology influences the deflection of solar eruptions in the low corona, showing that topology is a more accurate predictor than magnetic pressure gradients.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel approach comparing magnetic topology and gradient effects on CME deflection, demonstrating topology's dominant role in early CME trajectory prediction.

Findings

Magnetic topology better predicts CME paths than magnetic pressure gradients.

Topological effects are the primary driver of CME deflections in the low corona.

New 3D tracking technique enhances CME trajectory reconstruction.

Abstract

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) can exhibit non-radial evolution. The background magnetic field is considered the main driver for the trajectory deviation relative to the source region. The influence of the magnetic environment has been largely attributed to the gradient of the magnetic pressure. In this work, we propose a new approach to investigate the role of topology on CME deflection and to quantify and compare the action between the magnetic field gradient (`gradient' path) and the topology (`topological' path). We investigate 8 events simultaneously observed from Solar Orbiter, STEREO-A and SDO; and, with a new tracking technique, we reconstruct the 3D evolution of the eruptions. Then, we compare their propagation with the predictions from the two magnetic drivers. We find that the `topological' path describes the CME actual trajectory much better than the more traditional `gradient path'. Our results strongly indicate that the ambient topology may be the dominant driver for deflections in the low corona, and that presents a promising method to estimate the direction of propagation of CMEs early in their evolution.