HR: 08:15h
AN: SA41B-02    [Abstracts]
TI: Response of the Electron Density in the Solar Corona to Extreme Solar Events
AU: Butala, M D
EM: butala@uiuc.edu
AF: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1308 W. Main St., Urbana, IL 61801 United States
AU: Frazin, R A
EM: rfrazin@uiuc.edu
AF: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1308 W. Main St., Urbana, IL 61801 United States
AU: * Kamalabadi, F
EM: farzadk@uiuc.edu
AF: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1308 W. Main St., Urbana, IL 61801 United States
AB: We present the results of a study aimed at investigating the response of the three-dimensional solar corona to the extreme solar events of October and November 2003. Three-dimensional images of the electron density ($N_e$) in the solar corona between 1.1 and 2.7 $R_{\odot}$ are formed from polarized brightness (pB) coronagraph measurements by the process of solar rotational tomography. Since each pixel of a coronagraph image represents a line of sight (LOS) integration of $N_e$, an inversion of the LOS measurements is required to reconstruct $N_e$. Solar rotational tomography exploits the Sun's rotation to combine a set of coronagraph images each measured at a different view angle to perform the required inversion and form the three-dimensional image of $N_e$. In this work, we focus on ground-based measurements obtained from the Mark-IV K-Coronameter at the Mauna Loa Solar Observatory (MLSO). The response of the corona to the extreme solar events is studied by comparing the $N_e$ reconstructions determined at periods before, during, and after the onset of the superstorms.
DE: 7509 Corona
DE: 7513 Coronal mass ejections
DE: 6982 Tomography and imaging
DE: 3220 Nonlinear dynamics
DE: 3260 Inverse theory
SC: SPA-Aeronomy [SA]
MN: 2004 AGU Fall Meeting