STREAMER WAVES DRIVEN BY CORONAL MASS EJECTIONS

Abstract

Between 2004 July 5 and July 7, two intriguing fast coronal mass ejection (CME)-streamer interaction events were recorded by the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph. At the beginning of the events, the streamer was pushed aside from its equilibrium position upon the impact of the rapidly outgoing and expanding ejecta; then, the streamer structure, mainly the bright streamer belt, exhibited elegant large-scale sinusoidal wavelike motions. The motions were apparently driven by the restoring magnetic forces resulting from the CME impingement, suggestive of magnetohydrodynamic kink mode propagating outward along the plasma sheet of the streamer. The mode is supported collectively by the streamer-plasma sheet structure and is therefore named 'streamer wave' in the present study. With the white light coronagraph data, we show that the streamer wave has a period of about 1 hr, a wavelength varying from 2 to 4 solar radii, an amplitude of about a few tens of solar radii, and a propagating phase speed in the range 300-500 km s{sup -1}. We also find that there is a tendency for the phase speed to decline with increasing heliocentric distance. These observations provide good examples of large-scale wave phenomena carried by coronal structures and have significance in developing seismological techniques for diagnosing plasma and magnetic parameters in the outer corona.