On the fast coronal mass ejections in October/November 2003: ACE-SWICS results

Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) originate deep in the corona and, due to physical processes that are currently not well understood, are often accelerated to speeds well above the average solar wind speed. Solar wind compositional measurements provide important information about the source of such ejections, the heating profiles, and their expansion in the inner heliosphere. In this article we present data from the Solar Wind Ion Composition Spectrometer (SWICS), part of the Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) spacecraft, describing the kinetic and compositional properties of the solar wind associated with CMEs that occurred in late October and early November 2003. In particular, we discuss the ionic composition of C, O, and Fe, as well as the relative elemental composition of C, O, and Fe, present in those CMEs.