The Role of Large-scale Magnetic Coupling for Solar Corona Sympathy

Abstract:

With the comprehensive view and high cadence observations from SDO/AIA and STEREO in solar cycle 24, a large number of spatially separated solar eruptive events are found to be coupled. However, compared with the established initiation mechanisms for "isolated" events, the mechanisms for "sympathetic" events are still largely unknown, and nascent theories are untested. In this study, we build a realistic environment of solar corona on 2011 February 15 using a global MHD model and investigate how an eruption can impact the surrounding solar structures. Our result shows that the solar eruption’s impact on the different structures can be quite different. Within the CME expansion domain, it is possible to trigger an eruption by overlaying field removal through expansion induced reconnection. The magnitude of impact is found to be dependent on the orientation of the erupting flux rope. Outside the CME expansion domain, the post-eruption reconfiguration could play an important role for solar sympathy. Based on the modeling results, we discuss the possibility of using observable/estimable parameters to quantify the eruption impact therefore providing an useful parameter for forecasting sympathy.