Dependence of Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejection Magnetic Properties
on Their Solar Sources
Abstract
Several studies suggest that magnetic reconnection plays an essential
role to generate and accelerate most of the erupting coronal magnetic
flux ropes such as coronal mass ejections (CMEs). We explore the
connection between magnetic properties (magnetic flux and helicity) of
interplanetary coronal mass ejection (ICME) flux-ropes (magnetic clouds
[MCs]) and those of associated near-sun CME flux-ropes formed in
situ by low corona magnetic reconnection. We identify the progenitor
CMEs and their solar sources and derive the source region reconnection
flux using the post-eruption arcade (PEA) method. Combining the
reconnection flux and the geometrical properties of associated CMEs
obtained by forward-modeling, we extract the magnetic properties of CME
flux ropes at their source. To measure the magnetic properties of 1 AU
ICME we use constant-α force-free cylindrical flux rope model fit to in
situ observations and directly from the observed magnetic time series
rotated to the cloud frame. We investigate whether a significant
difference exists in magnetic properties of ICMEs if their solar source
is composed of pre-existing flux-ropes (filaments). This study has
significant implications in finding the role of reconnection in the
formation of twisted flux ropes during a solar eruptive process that
transport solar magnetic flux and helicity into interplanetary space.