Could the Collision of CMEs in the Heliosphere be Super-Elastic? (ii) Influence of the Initial Speed of CMEs on Their Collision Process

Fang Shen, National Space Science Center, CAS, Beijing, China, Yuming Wang, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China, Chenglong Shen, University Science & Technology of China, Hefei, Anhui, China and Xue Shang Feng, CSSAR, Beijing, China
Abstract:
In this presentation, we analyze and quantitatively study the influence of the initial speed of the two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on the CMEs collision process in the heliosphere using a three-dimensional (3-D) numerical magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) simulation. Our recent study [Shen et al., 2013, hereinafter referred to as paper 1] validated numerically that the collision of CMEs in two CMEs interaction event in 2008 November could be super-elastic. To study how the initial speed of the CMEs influences the CMEs collision process, five cases with different initial speed and speed difference are selected. Results show that whether the collision of CMEs could be super-elastic or not is mostly rely on the initial speed difference of the two CMEs rather than the initial speed itself. In the super-elastic cases, the additional magnetic and thermal energies are converted into kinetic energy.
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