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STEREO IMPACT/PLASTIC Level 3 Event Lists

  1. List of Interplanetary Coronal Mass Ejections (ICMEs)

    2. The ICMEs are identified based on inspection of a combination of signatures: an enhancement of total perpendicular pressure (Pt = B2/(2μ0) + ΣjnjkTperp,j, where j represents the three major species in the solar wind: protons, electrons and alpha particles, see Russell et al., 2005. Its gradient indicates the force), a stronger than ambient magnetic field, relatively quiet and smooth magnetic field rotations, a declining solar wind speed, a low proton temperature [Jian et al., 2006a, 2013, 2018].

    At least three of the above features were required to identify an ICME. The edges of ICMEs were identified from a consensus of available features, usually delimited on sharp changes in plasma and magnetic field properties. For ambiguous events, we checked the SOHO LASCO CME catalog and STEREO SECCHI observations.

  2. List of Stream Interaction Regions (SIRs)

    3. The SIRs include corotating interaction regions (CIRs) and transient stream interaction regions. The difference between a CIR and a transient SIR is only that a CIR recurs for two or more solar rotation cycles.

    The SIRs are identified based on inspection of the following features: an increase of solar wind speed, a pile-up of total perpendicular pressure (Pt) with gradual decreases at both sides from the Pt peak to the edges of interaction region, velocity deflections, a first-increase and then decrease of proton number density, an enhancement of proton temperature, an increase of the entropy defined as ln(Tp3/2/Np) [Siscoe and Intriligator, 1993; Crooker et al., 1996], a compression of the magnetic field. We require the presence of at least 5 signatures, and identify SIRs with careful consideration of the ambient solar wind. For detail, please refer to Jian et al., 2006b, 2013, 2019.

  3. List of Interplanetary Shocks

    4. The forward and reverse shocks are identified using 8-Hz magnetic field data. We rotated them into shock normal coordinates to examine the existence of associated shock waves and field changes consistent with the Rankine-Hugoniot relations. The shock normal angle (θBn), field change, and Mach number, are also given in this list.

    To confirm, we have also checked the 1-min PLASTIC data. At forward shocks, all of solar wind speed, proton number density, proton temperature, and magnetic field should increase simultaneously. At reverse shocks, solar wind speed increases, while proton number density, proton temperature, and magnetic field all decrease. However, not all shocks have clear signatures in plasma properties. We indicate such shocks in the comments.

  4. List of Solar Energetic Proton (SEP) Events Observed by Both STEREO A and B

  5. List of PLASTIC Suprathermal Proton Events from University of New Hampshire
    6. Suprathermal Lists

Reference:

Crooker, N.U., M.E. Burton, G.L. Siscoe, S.W. Kahler, J.T. Gosling, and E.J. Smith (1996), Solar wind streamer belt structure, J. Geophys. Res., 101, 24331.

Jian, L., C.T. Russell, J.G. Luhmann, and R.M. Skoug (2006a), Properties of interplanetary coronal mass ejections at one AU during 1995 - 2004, Sol. Phy., 239, 393, doi: 10.1007/s11207-006-0133-2.

Jian, L., C.T. Russell, J.G. Luhmann, and R.M. Skoug (2006b), Properties of stream interaction at one AU during 1995 - 2004, Sol. Phy., 239, 337, doi: 10.1007/s11207-006-0132-3.

Jian, L.K., C.T. Russell, J.G. Luhmann, A.B. Galvin, and K.D.C. Simunac (2013), Solar Wind Observations at STEREO: 2007 – 2011, Amer. Inst. Phys. Proceedings of Solar Wind 13, 1539, 191, doi: 10.1063/1.4811020.

Jian, L.K., C.T. Russell, J.G. Luhmann, and A.B. Galvin (2018), STEREO observations of interplanetary coronal mass ejections in 2007-2016, The Astrophys. J., 885, 114, doi: 10.3847/1538-4357/aab189.

Jian, L.K., J.G. Luhmann, C.T. Russell, and A.B. Galvin (2019), Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO) observations of stream interaction regions in 2007Ë—2016: Relationship with heliospheric current sheets, solar cycle variations, and dual observations, Solar Phys., 294, 31, doi: 10.1007/s11207-019-1416-8.

Russell, C.T., A.A. Shinde, and L. Jian (2005), A new parameter to define interplanetary coronal mass ejections, Adv. Space Res., 35, 2178.

Siscoe, G., and D. Intriligator (1993), Three views of two giant streams: aligned observations at 1 AU, 4.6 AU, and 5.9 AU, Geophys. Res. Lett., 20 (20), 2267.