Statistical study on the kinematic distribustion of coronal mass ejections from 1996 to 2015

In this study we have made a statistical investigation on the kinematic classification of coronal mass ejections (CMEs) using about 4,000 SOHO/LASCO CMEs from 1996 to 2015. For this we use their SOHO/LASCO C3 data and exclude all poor events. Using the constant acceleration model, we classify these CMEs into three groups: Acceleration group, Constant Velocity group, and Deceleration group. For classification we adopt four different methods: Acceleration method, Velocity Variation method, Height Contribution method, and Visual Inspection method. Our major results are as follows. First, the fractions of three groups depend on the method used. Second, the results of the Height Contribution method are most consistent with those of the Visual Inspection method, which is thought to be most promising. Third, the fractions of different kinematic groups for the Height contribution method are: Acceleration (35%), Constant speed (47%), and Deceleration (18%). Fourth, the fraction strongly depend on CME speed; the fraction of Acceleration decreases from 0.6 to 0.05 with CME speed; the fraction of Constant increases from 0.3 to 0.7; the fraction of Deceleration increases from 0.1 to 0.3. Finally we present dozens of CMEs with non-constant accelerations. It is found that about 40 % of these CMEs show quasi-periodic oscillations.