Coronal mass ejections associated with polar crown filaments

Abstract

In the sample of 301 well identified earth-directed halo coronal mass ejections (CMEs) from March 1997 to December 2003, all 21 CMEs associated with polar crown filament (PCF) eruptions are analyzed. Here, the PCFs are viewed as the filaments that partially or totally lie along the boundaries of polar coronal holes, with average length over 1000″, and are intrinsically associated with extended bipole regions (EBRs). The current approach focuses on the CME properties and the flux change in the filament channels. According to the magnetic configurations where the PCFs lie, three classes of PCFs are identified. CMEs present distinguishable velocity distributions associated with each type of PCFs. About 28% of these CMEs present geoeffective. Approximately, 10¹⁵ Mx S^-1 magnetic flux inflow into the filament channel and several times of 10²⁰ Mx flux changed during the course of PCF eruption, which are speculated to trigger the PCF eruptions.