Role of the Coronal Environment in the Formation of Four Shocks Observed without Coronal Mass Ejections at Earth's Lagrangian Point L1

The main goal of this study is to determine the solar origin of four single shocks observed at the Lagrange point L1 and followed by storm sudden commencements (SSCs) during 2002. We look for associated coronal mass ejections (CMEs), starting from estimates of the transit time from Sun to Earth. For each CME, we investigate its association with a radio type II burst, an indicator of the presence of a shock wave. For three of the events, the type II burst is shown to propagate along the same, or a similar, direction as the fastest segment of the CME leading edge. We analyze for each event the role of the coronal environment in the CME development, the shock formation, and their propagation, to finally identify its complex evolution. The ballistic velocity of these shocks during their propagation from the corona to L1 is compared to the shock velocity at L1. Based on a detailed analysis of the shock propagation and possible interactions up to 30 solar radii, we find a coherent velocity evolution for each event, in particular for one event, the 2002 April 14 SSC, for which a previous study did not find a satisfactory CME source. For the other three events, we observe the formation of a white-light shock overlying the different sources associated with those events. The localization of the event sources over the poles, together with an origin of the shocks being due to encounters of CMEs, can explain why at L1 we observe only single shocks and not interplanetary CMEs.