Research Article 

The Coronal Analysis of SHocks and Waves (CASHeW) framework

¹ Institute for Astronomy, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Sofia 1784, Bulgaria
² Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
³ National Solar Observatory, Boulder, CO 80303, USA
⁴ Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
⁵ University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85271, USA
⁶ University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706, USA

^* Corresponding author: kkozarev@astro.bas.bg

Received: 31 May 2017
Accepted: 13 October 2017

Abstract

Coronal bright fronts (CBF) are large-scale wavelike disturbances in the solar corona, related to solar eruptions. They are observed (mostly in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) light) as transient bright fronts of finite width, propagating away from the eruption source location. Recent studies of individual solar eruptive events have used EUV observations of CBFs and metric radio type II burst observations to show the intimate connection between waves in the low corona and coronal mass ejection (CME)-driven shocks. EUV imaging with the atmospheric imaging assembly instrument on the solar dynamics observatory has proven particularly useful for detecting large-scale short-lived CBFs, which, combined with radio and in situ observations, holds great promise for early CME-driven shock characterization capability. This characterization can further be automated, and related to models of particle acceleration to produce estimates of particle fluxes in the corona and in the near Earth environment early in events. We present a framework for the coronal analysis of shocks and waves (CASHeW). It combines analysis of NASA Heliophysics System Observatory data products and relevant data-driven models, into an automated system for the characterization of off-limb coronal waves and shocks and the evaluation of their capability to accelerate solar energetic particles (SEPs). The system utilizes EUV observations and models written in the interactive data language. In addition, it leverages analysis tools from the SolarSoft package of libraries, as well as third party libraries. We have tested the CASHeW framework on a representative list of coronal bright front events. Here we present its features, as well as initial results. With this framework, we hope to contribute to the overall understanding of coronal shock waves, their importance for energetic particle acceleration, as well as to the better ability to forecast SEP events fluxes.