Study of Interplanetary CMEs/Shocks During Solar Cycle 24 Using Drag-Based Model: The Role of Solar Wind

In this paper we analyze a set of 27 fast interplanetary coronal mass ejections (ICMEs) observed during the period January 2010 – December 2013 in Solar Cycle 24. The arrivals of interplanetary shocks and CMEs at 1 AU are found from OMNI spacecraft high resolution data and their travel times are compared with Empirical Shock Arrival (ESA; Gopalswamy et al. in Adv. Space Res.36, 2289, 2005) and Drag Based Model (DBM; Vršnak et al. in Solar Phys.285, 295, 2013). The analysis of the transit time, deceleration, and drag parameter is used to examine the role of the solar-wind characteristics in the dynamics of ICMEs. The obtained ICME parameters (deceleration, drag parameter) are compared with the decelerated events (34 of 91 events in Solar Cycle 23) from the study of Manoharan et al. (J. Geophy. Res.109, A06109, 2004). The interplanetary (IP) deceleration shows similar trend between the cycles. Though the Cycle 24 has weak solar wind, it does not affect the arrival time behavior. It is concluded that the solar-wind behavior is considered to be the same in Cycles 23 and 24 for ICMEs. The IP drag parameter is linearly correlated with CME initial speed. The p-value between CME speed and drag parameter suggests that they are highly significant. The important result of the study is that the solar wind showed a similar kind of drag effect for the propagating CMEs in both cycles.