JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH, VOL. 90, NO.

A1, PAGES 191-197, JANUARY 1, 1985

The Evolution of Interplanetary Shocks
H. V. CANE 1
Laboratory For High Energy Astrophysics, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland
Unambiguous identification of the solar events associated with 48 interplanetary (IP) shocks has been
facilitated by the observation of radio emission generated by the shocks. This identification makes
possible an investigation of the way in which these shocks evolve and of the relationship between solar
event "strength" and shock velocity. All but two of the 48 solar events associated with IP type II radio
emission included long-duration soft X-ray events (LDE's). In addition, it is shown that all intense LDE's
are associated with IP shocks. A weak correlation between the integral flux of soft X rays and the
average velocity of the associated shock is suggested. However, for two events all the usual flare signa-
tures were absent, and the events are associated with the disappearance of solar filaments. It is shown
that the shocks propagate isotropically over about 50 from the source site. Beyond 50 the shocks
weaken particularly on their eastern flanks. As a consequence, shocks originating on the west limb
cannot reach the earth. IP type II radio emission is dependent on shock velocity with faster shocks
producing more intense emission. The study shows that radio intensities provide information about the
evolution of IP shocks.
1. INTRODUCTION
The behavior of interplanetary (IP) shocks is investigated by
making intercomparisons of a number of properties of 48
shocks which generated radio emission in the IP medium, i.e.,
IP type II events. There are two reasons for choosing such
events. First, since IP type II events are almost always preced-
ed by a shock-associated (SA) radio event [Cane et al., 1981]
which occurs essentially simultaneously with a solar flare,
there is no ambiguity in assigning the shocks to a source
region on the sun. Second, by comparing only shocks which
produced IP radio emission, the study is restricted to a more
homogeneous class of IP shock. The studies of IP type II
events using the radio astronomy experiment on ISEE 3 [e.g.,
Cane and Stone, 1984] have shown that the shocks which
generate IP radio emission are (1) almost always associated
with a solar flare event and (2) travel through the IP medium
rapidly. From the present work it is apparent that these
shocks belong to the class of most energetic shocks detected at
1 AU. It is shown that the radio emission can be used as a
tool to investigate how these shocks evolve and to enable an
examination of how the average shock velocity correlates with
solar event "strength."
2. D^x^
The solar phenomena associated with IP type II events
have been discussed by Cane and Stone [1984], Cane et al.
[1982], and Robinson et al. [1984]. The paper by Cane and
Stone covers the period from ISEE 3 launch(August 1978) to
the end of 1981. In the present paper the events from 1982 and
one event from 1983 have been added. The list is not exhaus-
tive, but certainly all strong events are included. After mid-
October 1982, ISEE 3 was close to the earth, and terrestrial
kilometric radiation made observations very difficult. The list
may be incomplete beyond this time. Table 1 presents the
properties of the 48 events identified.
The start day and time for each event has been given. To
Also at Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of
Maryland, College Park.
Copyright 1985 by the American Geophysical Union.
Paper number 4A8120.
0148-0227/85/004A-8120505.00
facilitate use of the list by workers using data obtained at 1
AU the day of year of arrival of the shock at 1 AU, as evi-
denced by a storm sudden commencement (SC), is also given.
The shock passage at ISEE 3 occurs about 40 min before the
SC. Note that there are eight events for which there was no
SC or shock at earth. For as many events as possible the
following properties have been determined.
Source Location
The source location was determined from the associated Ha
flare as reported in Solar Geophysical Data (SGD). Start
times correspond to the commencement of associated meter
wavelength activity or of the SA event at kilometer wave-
lengths. Only two events had no Ha flare, but both were
preceded by an SA event. For a few events the start times are
not well defined. The May 10, 1981, event had no signature at
meter wavelengths, and the low-frequency data was ambigu-
ous. The soft X-ray data has a gap, but the activity com-
menced close to 1200 UT. The September 4, 1982, event com-
menced during an ISEE 3 data gap. It is not clear that the
meter wavelength type II burst which commenced at 0236 UT
is related, but the SA event started between 0200 and 0300
UT.
Source Strength
The parameter which is used to characterize the source
strength is the integral flux in 1-8 A soft X rays, i.e., the peak
flux (in units of 10 6 W m -2) times the e folding time (in
hours). The values were obtained from daily plots in SGD.
The long-duration X-ray event (LDE) is the solar phenome-
non which occurs most often prior to an IP type II event
[Cane and Stone, 1984]. LDE's also correlate well with the
occurrence of coronal transients [Sheeley et al., 1975; Kahler,
1977; Sheeley et al., 1983], and there appears to be a close
relationship between a number of transients and IP shocks
[Schwenn, 1983; Sheeley et al., 1983, this issue]. For the pur-
pose of obtaining better statistics on strong IP shocks I have
listed all events in the period 1979-1982 with an integral flux
greater than 100. Fifty percent of this list included events
associated with IP type II emission; these are contained in
Table 1; those not associated with IP radio emission are
shown in Table 2. It is assumed that SC's which occurred
within 3 days of the LDE's were caused by associated shocks.
191
192 CANE: INTERPLANETARY SHOCK EVOLUTION
TABLE 1. Properties of Forty-Eight Interplanetary Type II Events
Event
Number Date
Day of Year
Time, Ha 1-8 !,, Integral Radio of Shock
UT Location Peak Flux Intensity At 1 AU
SC
Transit
Time, Amplitude Velocity,
Day UT Gamma km/s
Shock
Strength
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
3O
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
Sept. 23
Oct. 1
Nov. 10
Dec. 11
Feb. 16
Mar. 1
Mar. 9
Mar. 11
Apr. 3
Apr. 23
July 4
Aug. 18
Aug. 20
Aug. 26
Sept. 14
Apr. 4
July 17
July 23
Oct. 15
Nov. 11
Nov. 22
Nov. 23
Nov. 28
Apr. 1
Apr. 24
Apr. 26
May 8
May 10
May 13
May 14
May 16
Aug. 7
Aug. 21
Oct. 7
Oct. 12
Nov. 9
Nov. 22
Dec. 5
Dec. 9
Dec. 27
41 Jan. 30
42 Feb. 1
43 July 9
44 July 12
45 July 22
46 Sept. 4
47 Sept. 19
48 Feb. 3
1978
0958 35N, 50W X1 195 8.3 268
0718 13S, 57E M9 65 2.7 277
0110 17N, 01E M2 18 8.4 316
1942 16S, 50W X1 110 3.6 348
1979
0150 16N, 59E no data 4.1 49
1018 23S, 58E X1 30 3.1 63
1027 17N, 80E X1 60 <2
1054 24S, 76W M1 4 <2 74
0111 25S, 14W M4 72 8.4 95
0144 10E? no event 3.9 114
1921 11N, 36E M2 21 5.5 187
1412 8N, 90E X6 122 11.0 232
0915 5N, 77E X6 360 1.8
1744 5N, 11W X2 112 2.4 241
0700 5N, 90E X2 260 4.7
1980
1503 27N, 35W M5 80 noisy 158
0545 11S, 6E M5 24 10.0 200
0100 19S, 17E M9 63 2.6 207
0520 21N, 55E M2 58 3.2 292
1744 11S, 69W M5 18 1.3 319
0554 18S, 39E M2 17 2.9 329
1848 13N, 23W M2 20 1.6 331
0950 13S, 63E M2 40 1.7
0138 43S, 52W
1355 14N, 50W
1137 12N, 74W
2233 9N, 42E
1200 11N, 90E
0357 13N, 54E
0844 20 N, 32E
0825 10N, 16E
1907 10S, 24E
0832 17S, 2E
2259 13S, 90E
0627 17S, 30E
1242 16S, 17E
0729 12N, 21W
1329
1900 12N, 16W
0251 13S, 16E
2338 16S, 13E
1357 14S, 09W
0744 17N, 73E
0946 11N, 37E
1720 16N, 89W
0236 13N, 33E
1459 16S, 3E
0603 19S, 8W
1981
X2 100 2.0 93
X5 300 7.9 116
X1 266 5.4
M7 170 7.3 130
X1 130 noisy
X1 255 1.9 134
M2 30 1.8 136
X1 132 8.2 137
M4 100 2.2 222
M4 28 noisy 235
X4 180 3.2 283
X3 300 15.3 286
M4 60 4.0 315
M1 15 2.9 329
no event 1.4
M4 34 gap 346
C7 24 3.8 363
1982
X1 102 5.4 32
X3 107 5.5 34
X1 150 6.6 192
X7 > 700 27.7 194
M5 200 5.2
M4 184 10.5 251
C9 32 1.9 265
1983
X4 280 19.3 34
25 0718 23 910 > 2
04 0047 19 640 2.1
12 0100 29 870 2.3
14 0127 30 770 gap
18 0304 33 840 2.3
04 0445 5 630 gap
15 0556 11 460 1.5
05 0155 29 860 2.8
24 2357 30 900 2.5
06 1930 52 860 3.1
20 0625 38 1030 2.3
29 0459 19 700 gap
06 1059 30 950 2.7
18 1926 50 1100 3.7
25 1111 26 710 gap
18 0114 17 610 gap
14 1153 8 630 1.9
24 2257 10 640 1.6
26 0422 28 720 gap
03 0347 15 830 2.4
26 0813 48 980 3.2
10 2208 45 870 2.8
14 1856 22 1070 2.0
16 0532 22 930 2.0
17 2302 49 1070 2.6
10 0434 55 730 3.6
23 1257 31 790 >2
10 1434 17 650 1.8
13 2240 56 1030 3.3
11 1238 45 870 >2
25 0229 51 620 gap
12 0144 33 760 3.2
29 0455 43 830 2.6
01 1100 31 1170
03 0129 29 1160
11 0953 40 830
13 1617 93 1350
05 2250 53 940
21 0339 41 1130
04 1615 109 1220
2.8
>2
SC, sudden commencement.
Shock Transit Velocity
The transit velocity is determined from the transit time of a
shock from the sun to the earth. It is a useful parameter to
gauge the velocity of a shock in the IP medium.
Note that all shocks in Tables 1 and 2 with transit velocities
above 1100 km/s occurred after the end of 1981. Another
well-documented event [e.g., Dryer, 1975] which occurred
August 7, 1972, had a similarly high transit velocity and also
occurred in the declining phase of solar activity. The relatively
CANE: INTERPLANETARY SHOCK EVOLUTION 193
TABLE 2. LDE's With Fluxes Greater Than 100 Which Were Not Associated With an IP Type II
Event
SC
Transit
Time, H 1-8 A, Integral Time, Amplitude Velocity,
Date UT Location Peak Flux Day UT Gamma km/s
1979
June 5 0514 17N, 14E X2 368 06 1927 63 1090
1980
Jan. 25 2101 19S, 50W M9 145 28 1943 19 590
Oct. 28 2147 19S, 72W M1 110 30 1520 20 990
Nov. 6 0346 13S, 70E X9 450 09 1122 10 520
Nov. 14 0642 > 90W M8 212
1981
Apr. 27 0813 15N, 90W X6 660
Apr. 28 2109 15N, 90W X1 192
July 17 0816 7S, 90E X2 102
July 19 0535 29S, 56W X3 180
1982
Mar. 7 0306 17N, 53W X3 120
Mar. 30 0538 13N, 11W X4 200
June 3 1144 9S, 72E X9 200
June 4 1337 10S, 54E X6 180
June 6 1634 11S, 26E X9 360
June 12 0544 10N, 83E X4 240
June 27 1855 90W M4 240
Nov. 22 1747 11 S, 36W M7 160
Nov. 26 0234 12S, 84W X5 600
Dec. 7 2344 19S, 86W X3 280
Dec. 8 1413 7N, 68E M7 140
Dec. 17 1900 8S, 21W X9 450
Dec. 19 1632 10N, 74W M9 200
23 0646 20 430
01 1304 24 750
06 0244 31 660
09 0040 47 700
24 0922 54 1040
10 0721 33 1010
19 0254 63 1320
LDE's, long-duration events; IP, interplanetary' SC, sudden commencement.
large percentage of high-speed shocks in 1982 has also been
noted by Sheeley et al. [this issue].
IP Type II Emission Intensity
I have determined an average intensity for an many events
as possible. This average is for frequencies in the approximate
range 500 to 90 kHz and was obtained using intensity profiles
for the events. Intensity profiles at a number of frequencies
were illustrated in the paper by Cane [1983]. At each fre-
quency there is a lower envelope to the emission which is
roughly gaussian. For each event I have determined the peak
of this envelope at as many frequencies as possible. Over the
6O
20




i i i
SHOCK STRE$TH
Fig. 1. Mid-latitude SC amplitudes (H) plotted as a function of
shock strength (ratio of downsteam to upstream electron density).
frequency of interest the variation of intensity with frequency
is not large and the intensity quoted (arbitrary units) is the
arithmetic mean of the individual peaks. The standard devi-
ations of the means are typically 50%. This quantifies the
separation of the events into two categories as introduced in
earlier papers.
Shock Strength
Shock strengths were determined from the ratios of down-
stream to upstream electron densities. The densities were mea-
sured with the Los Alamos plasma analyzer on ISEE 3 (W. C.
Feldman, personal communication, 1984). Most events had
strengths >2, which means that they belong to the class of
stronger interplanetary shocks [Feldman et al., 1983]. Note,
however, that there are quite a few data gaps in the ISEE 3
data. To supplement the plasma data the mean H amplitudes
of SC's at mid-latitude stations were used. Figure 1 shows that
this parameter correlates reasonably well with shock strength.,
3. DISCUSSION
Figure 2 shows the distribution of source regions respon-
sible for shocks which produced IP type II events and which
reached the earth. Of 39 events with known longitudes, 25
were from eastern regions and 14 from western regions. The
sample is small, but the difference may be significant. It is,
however, important to determine that any E-W asymmetry is
not influenced by possible directivity of the radio emission. To
test this I attempted to determine if there was a similar asym-
roetry in the distribution of intense (integral fluxes greater
than 100) LDE's associated with SC's, assuming that intense
194 CANE' INTERPLANETARY SHOCK EVOLUTION
I I I l
l
Z 8 -
: 4
90 60 30 0 30 60 90
EAST WEST
HELlOGRAPHIC LONGITUDE
Fig. 2. Distribution of source longitudes for shocks which gener-
ated radio emission in the interplanetary medium and which were
responsible for an SC.
LDE's are associated with strong shocks. The assumption
seems reasonable given the number associated with an IP type
II and that a few others were associated with shocks detected
at Helios 1 [Sheeley et al., this issue]. Furthermore, all intense
LDE's originating within 50 of central meridian were fol-
lowed within a few days by SC's. Note that the longitudes of
the LDE's were obtained from associations with Ha events
reported in SGD. Two events (November 14, 1980, and June
27, 1982) were assigned sources on or beyond the west limb on
the basis of coronal transient and IP shock observations
[Sheeley et al., this issue, also personal communication, 1984].
Of the total of 45 LDE's with integral fluxes above 100
there were equal numbers (10) from within 20 of both limbs.
Five from the east were followed by an SC as against two
from the west. The most westerly event followed by an SC
occurred at 75W, whereas there were two events from 90E
followed by SC's. Thus the intense LDE data show that
shocks from the west limb do not reach the earth. This asym-
metry is consistent with the fact that the eastern and western
portions of shocks are not the same because of the western
rotation of the sun. This large-scale geometry is illustrated in
the well-known figure first presented by Hundhausen [1972].
The asymmetry is also consistent with the East-West asym-
metry observed in the magnitude of Forbush decreases [Haur-
witz et al., 1965; Barnden, 1973]. Note that Chao and Lepping
[1974] found a predominance of western events when associ-
ating SC's with flares, but it is likely that in previous work of
this kind a number of associations were incorrect. Neverthe-
less, the predominance of eastern limb events over western
limb events can be seen in the distribution of SC amplitudes
against flare longitudes as obtained by Akasofu and Yoshida
[1967].
Previous studies assumed that all shocks originated with a
solar flare event. The absence at earth of shocks originating at
the west limb provides support for the association of one of
the events in Table 1 with nonflare activity. In earlier papers
[Cane et al., 1982; Cane and Stone, 1984] the shock arriving at
earth on April 24, 1979, was attributed to a flare behind the
west limb. However, in recent work [Joselyn and Mcintosh,
1981; Wright, 1983; Wright and McNamara, 1983] it has been
proposed that interplanetary shocks can originate with the
disappearance of filaments. Sanahuja et al. [1983] have associ-
ated the April 24 shock with the disappearance of a filament
near 10E late on April 22. Given the results above this seems
a more probable source region. It is possible that the event
EAST
SUN
WEST
Fig. 3. Average shock shape at 1 AU derived from averaging
shock transit velocities for events originating in similar longitude
ranges. Western events are plotted to the eastside, since at earth the
east flank is detected. The arc centred on the sun is a good fit over at
least 50 from central meridian; it is a poor fit to the east flank.
commencing December 5, 1981, also originated with the dis-
appearance of a filament. No flare event was recorded, but the
P78-1 coronagraph saw a CME and Ha projecta with a pro-
jected lift-off time close to the SA event start time (N. R.
Sheeley, personal communication, 1984).
The distribution of transit velocities as a function of helio-
graphic longitude can be used to derive an average shock
shape at 1 AU. Figure 3 shows the resulting shape derived
from averaging the transit velocities in bins of 30 of lon-
gitude. The error bars are the standard deviations of the
means. The mean velocities for western sources are plotted to
the left of the earth-sun line, since at earth it is the eastern
flank which is detected. An arc centered on the sun is illus-
trated. The eastern extremity of the curve is a particularly
poor fit to the data. Of course, there are only two events in
this longitude range, but if western limb events do not reach
the earth it is expected that the east flanks of the shocks would
be weak.
Shock structure can also be investigated by plotting shock
strength as a function of source longitude, as is shown in
Figure 4. Not surprisingly, the highest shock strengths are
measured for shocks originating near central meridian. The
weakest shocks in our sample originated near the limbs where
one is sampling the flank. Note that since the shock of April
24, 1979, had a strength of 2.5, Figure 4 suggests that it orig-
inated within 50 of central meridian.
It is not the intent of this paper to discuss how radio emis-
sion is generated by IP shocks. However, one property very
useful in the present work is the observed dependence of the
intensity of radio emission on the shock velocity. Figure 5
shows radio intensity plotted as a function of shock transit
velocity. It can be seen that there is a reasonable trend with
the faster shocks producing the most intense emission. In the
present work only emission in the range between about 500
and 90 kHz is being discussed. This emission originates at
heliocentric distances between about 0.1 and 0.6 AU and thus
i
o 2.0
EAST
Fig. 4.
HELloGRAPHIC LONGITUDE WEST
'I.
Variation of shock strength with source longitude. The
bars show mean values and their standard deviations for events
grouped in 30 longitude bins.
CANE: INTERPLANETARY SHOCK EVOLUTION 195
o
>. 8
4 -
!

eee

e e


1200 1400
TRANSIT VELOCITY (km/sec)
Fig. 5. Variation of radio intensity with shock transit velocity. The
numbers refer to events in Table 1.
should be compared with an average velocity in this region.
Such information is not available. However, if the relationship
between radio intensity and shock velocity is valid, the radio
emission provides a powerful tool for investigating how
shocks evolve. By assuming the radio intensity is a correct
gauge of the average velocities of shocks near 0.5 AU, Figure 5
suggests that five shocks were slower than their transit veloci-
ties would indicate.
The five events in Figure 5 which lie outside the general
range exhibited by the majority of events are indicated on the
figure by their number in Table 1. Other data indicate that
these events were unusual. Compare Figure 6 with Figure 5.
Figure 6 shows the SC amplitudes for all events in Tables 1
and 2 as a function of shock transit velocity. The five events
(29, 30, 41, 42, and 47) all have SC amplitudes which are
smaller than those of other events with similar transit veloci-
ties.
It is concluded that the radio intensity provides a good
estimate of the velocity of a shock at intermediate distances
between the sun and the earth. Figure 5 can be interpreted as
indicating that the majority of the shocks evolved in a uniform
manner.
Figure 5 shows that only shocks with transit velocities
above about 700 km/s produce detectable emission. One
would like to show that all shocks with transit velocities
above 700 km/s produce a detectable event. This is impossible
to prove, since the radio emission is used to make the solar
associations. However, it is expected that the majority of the
strong IP shocks will be preceded by an intense LDE. Intense
LDE's not associated with IP type II events are given in Table
2 and are also indicated by the use of untilled symbols in
Figures 6 and 7. It can be seen that the majority of these
events originated far from central meridian, and only half
could be associated with an SC. It is likely that the associated
shocks were relatively slow in the direction of the earth. There
are five events in Table 2 with transit velocities above 750
120 ,
I00
60
40-
_
20 ->
0
400
I I I I I I

: .,
Io l
I I I I I I I
oo 8oo ooo 2oo
TRANSIT VELOCITY (km/sec)
1400
Fig. 6. SC amplitude as a function of shock transit velocity. Solid
symbols are for shocks which generated radio emission, and triangles
are used for events originating further than 50 from central meridian.
Left-pointing triangles are used for eastern events' right-pointing
triangles are used for western events.
km/s. Of these, three occurred after October 1982 when ISEE
3 had moved. These events could have produced radio emis-
sion that was not detected. Of the two earlier events, one
originated close to the west limb and based on the amplitude
of the SC was a weak shock at 1 AU. Figure 6 suggests that its
velocity near 0.5 AU was less than 800 km/s.
The final "fast" event without associated radio emission,
that of June 5, 1979, occurred during an intense type III
1400
1300
1200
1100
..--..
z 700
<
e41
42
e47
_
4 o
_ <3
-.
_
_
4
429

1) 2 3 4() 5) 6)0 7)
INTEGRAL FLUX 1--8
Fig. 7. Shock transit velocity as a function of integral flux of soft X
rays.
196 CANE: INTERPLANETARY SHOCK EVOLUTION
storm, and IP type II radio emission could possibly have been
masked. However, the event has been singled out in the litera-
ture as being very unusual. The shock was associated with an
extremely large solar energetic particle event which did not
commence until the shock reached the earth [von Rosenvinge
and Reames, 1983]. The structure which prevented energetic
particles from reaching the earth may also have affected elec-
trons which are responsible for radio emission. It thus seems
probable that all fast shocks generate radio emission.
Finally, there is one further aspect about the radio
intensity-shock velocity relationship which yields information
about shock evolution. If all fast shocks generate radio emis-
sion, then from the absence of radio emission associated with
a shock detected at 1 AU it can be implied that the shock
propagated with an average velocity less than about 700 km/s.
For workers familiar with the shocks detected by ISEE 3 it is
immediately apparent that some of the shocks fast at 1 AU
(velocities greater than about 500 km/s) are missing from
Table 1. From the absence of radio emission it is inferred that
these shocks had velocities less than 700 km/s at 0.5 AU. This
means that some shocks undergo little or no deceleration. An
example of such a shock is that detected at 0211 UT on
August 27, 1978. This shock had a velocity at 1 AU of 510
km/s [Ogilvie et al., 1982]. It has been associated with the
disappearance of a solar filament on August 23 with an im-
plied transit velocity of 430 km/s [Joselyn and Bryson, 1980].
The correlation between shock transit velocity and source
strength, as indicated by soft X rays, is now investigated.
Figure 7 shows transit velocities as a function of integral flux
of soft X rays. At the bottom of the figure the X rays fluxes of
events not associated with an SC are indicated. In Figures 6
and 7 different symbols have been used for events originating
further than 50 from central meridian. For some of these
events the transit velocity is probably less than the average
velocity radially from the flare site. It can be seen that the
events without SC's originated far from central meridian.
Figure 7 shows that there is a trend for the events with the
largest X ray fluxes to be associated with faster shocks, and
there seems to be a lower limit to the velocity of a shock for a
given flux. The correlation would be strengthened if events 41,
42, and 47 were moved to positions reflecting their velocities
as deduced from the radio data.
Without using the radio data one would conclude that there
is little or no correlation between soft X-ray fluxes and shock
velocity. The relationship is strengthened with the radio data,
since it has been shown that the transit velocities of a number
of shocks do not represent their velocities at 0.5 AU. Never-
theless, a number of relatively weak solar events produce
strong shocks with the extreme cases being the two shocks
with no signature in soft X rays. It is not clear what the
relationship between soft X rays and shock transit velocities
should be. In the scenario described by Anzer and Pneurnan
[1982], for example, the flare loops where the X ray emission
originates are only symptomatic of a coronal mass ejection
and not responsible for it. The relationship clearly deserves
more attention. However, the presence of an intense LDE is a
good forecaster for an IP shock, and the integral flux could be
used to predict the maximum propagation time for events
originating near central meridian.
CONCLUSIONS
Low-frequency radio emissions generated in the IP medium
enable unambiguous associations between solar events and
shocks at 1 AU. A study of 48 IP type II events provides the
following results:
1. The shocks studied propagated rapidly from the sun to
the earth and, if they originated near central meridian, had
density jumps > 2 near 1 AU. It is suggested that all shocks
which are fast (velocities above about 700 km/s) at about 0.5
AU, but not necessarily all those which are fast at 1 AU,
generate detectable IP type II radio emission. The intensity of
this emission can be used to estimate the average shock veloci-
ty in the region between about 0.1 and 0.6 AU.
2. Most shocks which propagate rapidly from the sun to
the earth are associated with solar flare events which include
LDE's. Some IP shocks originate with the disappearance of
filaments.
3. All intense LDE's are associated with IP shocks.
4. Shocks propagate isotropically over at least 50 from
the source longitude. The shocks are strongest radially from
the flare site.
5. Shocks originating on the west limb do not reach the
earth.
6. For some shocks the transit velocity does not give a
good estimate of the velocity of the shock at 0.5 AU. Allowing
for this, it is shown that a correlation, albeit weak, exists
between the integral flux of soft X rays and the average shock
velocity.
Acknowledgments. I wish to thank R. G. Stone and the Los
Alamos plasma group for making available the ISEE 3 radio and
plasma data, respectively. I am grateful to W. C. Erickson and N. R.
Sheeley for critically reading the manuscript and to D. P. Stern and
M. Sugiura for discussions about SC's. I thank R. MacDowell and B.
Enoch for processing the ISEE radio data and B. J. Stevenson for
assistance with the typing. Some of this work was carried out while I
was a guest at the Netherlands Foundation for Radio Astronomy,
Dwingeloo.
The Editor thanks the two referees for their assistance in evaluating
this paper.
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(Received April 30, 1984;
revised September 20, 1984;
accepted September 21, 1984.)