Correlations between the CME acceleration, other CME parameters and flare energy

Abstract

While the Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) without associated flares are known to accelerate and decelerate being moderated by the Lorentz force, gravity and the drag force due to solar wind, the flare association is known to prolong the acceleration. However, with or without the flare association, a significant proportion of slow CMEs decelerate and a similar proportion of fast CMEs accelerate. In the case of accelerating CMEs, various parameters of CMEs such as the mass, angular width etc. show good correlation and this improves with flare association. When the flares and CMEs are associated, there is apparently a division of energy between the flares and the CMEs. It is also known that the magnetic flux spanned by the flare arcade and ribbons after flare maximum, roughly equals the magnetic flux content of the CME and their ratio could be between one and two. The magnetic flux content of the CME can be estimated from the final angular width of the CME. Hence, we suggest that the CMEs experience net acceleration when the different parameters of CMEs such as angular width, mass etc. are correlated and when the CME parameters are correlated with flare duration and peak flux. The absence of the same may lead to CMEs experience net deceleration.