Tomoya Iju, Munetoshi Tokumaru, Ken'ichi Fujiki
We report radial speed evolution of interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) detected by the SOHO/LASCO coronagraph, interplanetary scintillation (IPS) at 327 MHz, and in-situ observations. In this study, we analyze solar wind disturbance factor (g-value) data derived from IPS observations during 1997-2009 covering nearly whole period of Solar Cycle 23. By comparing observations from the SOHO/LASCO, IPS, and in-situ, we then identify 39 ICMEs that could be analyzed carefully. Here, we define two speeds VSOHO and Vbg that are initial speed of ICME and the speed of background solar wind, respectively. Examinations for them yield the following results; 1) Fast ICMEs (with VSOHO - Vbg > 500 km/s) rapidly decelerate, moderate ICMEs (with 0 km/s < VSOHO - Vbg < 500 km/s) show either gradually decelerating or uniform motion, and slow ICMEs (with VSOHO - Vbg < 0 km/s) accelerate. The radial speeds converge on the speed of background solar wind during their outward propagation. We subsequently find; 2) both the acceleration and deceleration are nearly complete by 0.79 (+- 0.04)AU, and those are ended when the ICME speed reaches a given speed. We find the value of that to be 480 (+- 21) km/s. 3) For the fast and moderate ICMEs, a linear equation with a constant coefficient is more appropriate than a quadratic equation to describe the kinematics of them, because the chi-square for the linear equation satisfies the statistical significance level of 0.05, while the quadratic one is not. These results support the hypothesis that the radial motion of ICMEs is governed by a drag force due to interaction with the background solar wind. These findings also suggest that ICMEs propagating faster than background solar wind are controlled mainly by the hydrodynamic Stokes' drag.
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http://arxiv.org/abs/1303.5154
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