Letter to the Editor

Three-dimensional reconstruction of CME-driven shock–streamer interaction from radio and EUV observations: a different take on the diagnostics of coronal magnetic fields

¹ Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica, Osservatorio Astrofisico di Torino, via Osservatorio 20, Pino Torinese 10025, Italy
e-mail: salvatore.mancuso@inaf.it
² Università degli Studi di Torino – Dipartimento di Fisica, via Pietro Giuria 1, Torino, TO, Italy

Received: 29 January 2019
Accepted: 13 March 2019

Abstract

On 2014 October 30, a band-splitted type II radio burst associated with a coronal mass ejection (CME) observed by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) occurred over the southeast limb of the Sun. The fast expansion in all directions of the plasma front acted as a piston and drove a spherical fast shock ahead of it, whose outward progression was traced by simultaneous images obtained with the Nançay Radioheliograph (NRH). The geometry of the CME/shock event was recovered through 3D modeling, given the absence of concomitant stereoscopic observations, and assuming that the band-splitted type II burst was emitted at the intersection of the shock surface with two adjacent low-Alfvén speed coronal streamers. From the derived spatiotemporal evolution of the standoff distance between shock and CME leading edge, we were finally able to infer the magnetic field strength B in the inner corona. A simple radial profile of the form B(r) = (12.6 ± 2.5)r⁻⁴ nicely fits our results, together with previous estimates, in the range r = 1.1−2.0 R_⊙.