An Improvement on Mass Calculations of Solar Coronal Mass Ejections via Polarimetric Reconstruction

The mass of a coronal mass ejection (CME) is calculated from the measured brightness and assumed geometry of Thomson scattering. The simplest geometry for mass calculations is to assume that all of the electrons are in the plane of the sky (POS). With additional information like source region or multiviewpoint observations, the mass can be calculated more precisely under the assumption that the entire CME is in a plane defined by its trajectory. Polarization measurements provide information on the average angle of the CME electrons along the line of sight of each CCD pixel from the POS, and this can further improve the mass calculations as discussed here. A CME event initiating on 2012 July 23 at 2:20 UT observed by the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory is employed to validate our method.