Are All Coronal Mass Ejections Hollow Flux Ropes?

Abstract

A quantitative specification of a three-dimensional flux rope is examined statistically for comparison to previously published statistical measures of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) as observed by the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) spacecraft. The three-dimensional geometry that has been previously shown to reproduce statistical measures (average angular widths) of CME image data that show flux-rope morphologies is based on a ``hollow'' pre-eruption density structure extrapolated into the corona. It is shown that the SMM results are consistent with this hollow flux-rope geometry.