An Analysis of a Coronal Mass Ejection Leading Edge by Means of Multi-Spacecraft-in-Beam Phase Scintillation

TL;DR

This study analyzes a coronal mass ejection's impact on spacecraft radio signals using multi-spacecraft phase scintillation, revealing detailed turbulence structures and the CME's location relative to the Sun.

Contribution

It introduces a multi-spacecraft-in-beam phase scintillation technique to analyze CME structures and their effects on radio signals in unprecedented detail.

Findings

Correlated phase residuals during CME transit across different spacecraft.

Identified differences in turbulence regimes of CME leading edge and background solar wind.

Constrained CME impact location to 0.2 AU from the Sun.

Abstract

A Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) was detected crossing the radio signals transmitted by the Mars Express (MEX) and Tianwen-1 (TIW) spacecraft at a solar elongation of $4.4^{o}$. The impact of the CME was clearly identifiable in the spacecraft signal SNR, Doppler noise and phase residuals observed at the University of Tasmania's Very Long Baseline Interferometry (VLBI) antenna in Ceduna, South Australia. The residual phases observed from the spacecraft were highly correlated with each other during the transit of the CME across the radio ray-path despite the spacecraft signals having substantially different Doppler trends. We analyse the auto- and cross-correlations between the spacecraft phase residuals, finding time-lags ranging between 3.18-14.43 seconds depending on whether the imprinted fluctuations were stronger on the uplink or the downlink radio ray-paths. We also examine the temporal evolution of the phase fluctuations to probe the finer structure of the CME and demonstrate that there was a clear difference in the turbulence regime of the CME leading edge and the background solar wind conditions several hours prior to the CME radio occultation. Finally, autocorrelation of the MEX two-way radio Doppler noise data from Ceduna and closed-loop Doppler data from ESA's New Norcia ground station antenna were used to constrain the location of the CME impact along the radio ray-path \add{to a region 0.2 AU from the Sun, at a heliospheric longitude consistent with CME origin at the Sun. The results presented demonstrate the potential of the multi-spacecraft-in-beam technique for studying CME structures in great detail, and providing measurements that complement the capabilities of future solar monitoring instruments.