Bright Ray-like Features in the Aftermath of Coronal Mass Ejections: White Light versus Ultraviolet Spectra

Current sheets (CSs) are important signatures of magnetic reconnection in the eruption of confined solar magnetic structures. Models of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) involve formation of a CS connecting the ejected flux rope with the post-eruption magnetic loops. CSs have been identified in white light (WL) images of CMEs as narrow rays trailing the outward moving CME core, and in ultraviolet spectra as narrow bright features emitting the [Fe XVIII] line. In this work, samples of rays detected in WL images or in ultraviolet spectra have been analyzed. Temperatures, widths, and line intensities of the rays have been measured, and their correlation to the CME properties has been studied. The samples show a wide range of temperatures with hot, coronal, and cool rays. In some cases, the UV spectra support the identification of rays as CSs, but they show that some WL rays are cool material from the CME core. In many cases, both hot and cool material are present, but offset from each other along the Ultraviolet Coronagraph Spectrometer slit. We find that about 18% of the WL rays show very hot gas consistent with the CS interpretation, while about 23% show cold gas that we attribute to cool prominence material draining back from the CME core. The remaining events have ordinary coronal temperatures, perhaps because they have relaxed back to a quiescent state.