Investigations on halo coronal mass ejections, sunspots and their geoeffectiveness in the rising phase of the solar cycle 25

Abstract

In this research paper we investigated the halo coronal mass ejections and sunspot number during the period December 2019 to December 2023 for the rising phase of solar cycle 25. The SOHO/LASCO instrument observed 145 HCMEs during this period. We selected 145 halo CMEs and the associated flares, SSN and Dst. The HCME is found to be significantly faster and more energetic than the other CME. During solar maximum, HCME occur more frequently. Here we have considered all the frontside disk halos, frontside limb halos and the backside halos of the sun. These halos are classified according to their source location. Mostly the frontside disk halos are more geoeffective. For 70% (7/10) of the halo CMEs associated with X class flares have a speed greater than 1000 km/s. The daily sunspot number (SSN) and the yearly mean total sunspot number are taken into consideration for our study. The study of sunspot numbers is essential for planning space-related activities, particularly for low Earth orbiting spacecraft. Geoeffectiveness is the capacity of HCMEs to induce geomagnetic storms. The “Dst (Disturbance storm time) index” is one geomagnetic metric that is used to measure this. We categorized geoeffective halos into three groups: strongly geoeffective (Strong-GE, Dst < −100 nT), moderately geoeffective (Moderate-GE, −100 < Dst ≤ −50 nT), and weakly geoeffective (Weak-GE, Dst > −50 nT). Only 3.44% of halo CMEs were strongly geoeffective, and all of these were disk halos. The NW quadrant has the highest number of events throughout the research period of December 2019–December 2023. In this paper, we illustrate how the parameters of halo coronal mass ejections, sunspots and Dst can be used for space weather effects, evaluating geoeffectiveness, and auroras.