Sensing CMEs Propagating in the Interplanetary Medium. MEXART IPS Observations

Abstract:

The Mexican Array Radiotelescope (MEXART) is a ground instrument fully dedicated to perform Interplanetary Scintillation (IPS) observations to track large-scale solar wind disturbances within the Sun and the Earth. The MEXART is located at Michoacan (19 degrees 48' North, 101 degrees 41' West) and has an operation frequency of 140 MHz. The IPS technique is based on the scintillations that interplanetary disturbances (e.g., ICMEs) causes on the signal of small diameter cosmic radio sources detected by a radiotelescope. We report the tracking of the first solar disturbances detected by the instrument during the maximum of solar cycle 24. We estimated solar wind velocities and scintillation indexes (m). We present the first curves of the variation of the scintillating index with respect to the heliocentric distance for some strong radio sources using IPS observations at 140 MHZ. We identified events associated with strong scintilltaion in our data. We combine the IPS data with white light chronograph observations to identify the first CMEs in the interplanetary medium detected by the instrument.