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Register a new userEmergence of a Helical Flux Rope Under an Active Region Prominence
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Takenori Okamoto Joten
Publication date
2008
fields
Physics
and research's language is
English
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Continuous observations were obtained of active region 10953 with the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) on board the emph{Hinode} satellite during 2007 April 28 to May 9. A prominence was located over the polarity inversion line (PIL) in the south-east of the main sunspot. These observations provided us with a time series of vector magnetic fields on the photosphere under the prominence. We found four features: (1) The abutting opposite-polarity regions on the two sides along the PIL first grew laterally in size and then narrowed. (2) These abutting regions contained vertically-weak, but horizontally-strong magnetic fields. (3) The orientations of the horizontal magnetic fields along the PIL on the photosphere gradually changed with time from a normal-polarity configuration to a inverse-polarity one. (4) The horizontal-magnetic field region was blueshifted. These indicate that helical flux rope was emerging from below the photosphere into the corona along the PIL under the pre-existing prominence. We suggest that this supply of a helical magnetic flux into the corona is associated with evolution and maintenance of active-region prominences.
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The formation and evolution process and magnetic configuration of solar prominences remain unclear. In order to study the formation process of prominences, we examine continuous observations of a prominence in NOAA AR 10953 with the Solar Optical Telescope on the emph{Hinode} satellite. As reported in our previous Letter, we find a signature suggesting that a helical flux rope emerges from below the photosphere under a pre-existing prominence. Here we investigate more detailed properties and photospheric indications of the emerging helical flux rope, and discuss their relationship to the formation of the prominence. Our main conclusions are: (1) A dark region with absence of strong vertical magnetic fields broadens and then narrows in Ca textsc{ii} H-line filtergrams. This phenomenon is consistent with the emergence of the helical flux rope as photospheric counterparts. The size of the flux rope is roughly 30,000 km long and 10,000 km wide. The width is larger than that of the prominence. (2) No shear motion or converging flows are detected, but we find diverging flows such as mesogranules along the polarity inversion line. The presence of mesogranules may be related to the emergence of the helical flux rope. (3) The emerging helical flux rope reconnects with magnetic fields of the pre-existing prominence to stabilize the prominence for the next several days. We thus conjecture that prominence coronal magnetic fields emerge in the form of helical flux ropes that contribute to the formation and maintenance of the prominence.
Flux ropes are generally believed to be core structures of solar eruptions that are significant for the space weather, but their formation mechanism remains intensely debated. We report on the formation of a tiny flux rope beneath clusters of active region loops on 2018 August 24. Combining the high-quality multiwavelength observations from multiple instruments, we studied the event in detail in the photosphere, chromosphere, and corona. In the source region, the continual emergence of two positive polarities (P1 and P2) that appeared as two pores (A and B)is unambiguous. Interestingly, P2 and Pore B slowly approached P1 and Pore A, implying a magnetic flux convergence. During the emergence and convergence, P1 and P2 successively interacted with a minor negative polarity (N3) that emerged, which led to a continuous magnetic flux cancellation. As a result, the overlying loops became much sheared and finally evolved into a tiny twisted flux rope that was evidenced by a transient inverse S-shaped sigmoid, the twisted filament threads with blueshift and redshift signatures, and a hot channel. All the results show that the formation of the tiny flux rope in the center of the active region was closely associated with the continuous magnetic flux emergence, convergence, and cancellation in the photosphere. Hence, we suggest that the magnetic flux emergence, convergence, and cancellation are crucial for the formation of the tiny flux rope.
In this work, we investigate the formation of a magnetic flux rope (MFR) above the central polarity inversion line (PIL) of NOAA Active Region 12673 during its early emergence phase. Through analyzing the photospheric vector magnetic field, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and ultraviolet (UV) images, extrapolated three-dimensional (3D) non-linear force-free fields (NLFFFs), as well as the photospheric motions, we find that with the successive emergence of different bipoles in the central region, the conjugate polarities separate, resulting in collision between the non-conjugated opposite polarities. Nearly-potential loops appear above the PIL at first, then get sheared and merge at the collision locations as evidenced by the appearance of a continuous EUV sigmoid on 2017 September 4, which also indicates the formation of an MFR. The 3D NLFFFs further reveal the gradual buildup of the MFR, accompanied by the appearance of two elongated bald patches (BPs) at the collision locations and a very low-lying hyperbolic flux tube configuration between the BPs. The final MFR has relatively steady axial flux and average twist number of around $2.1times 10^{20}$~Mx and -1.5, respective. Shearing motions are found developing near the BPs when the collision occurs, with flux cancellation and UV brightenings being observed simultaneously, indicating the development of a process named as collisional shearing (firstly identified by Chintzoglou et al. 2019). The results clearly show that the MFR is formed by collisional shearing, i.e., through shearing and flux cancellation driven by the collision between non-conjugated opposite polarities during their emergence.
We investigate two successive flux rope (FR1 and FR2) eruptions resulting in two coronal mass ejections (CMEs) on 2012 January 23. Both FRs appeared as an EUV channel structure in the images of high temperature passbands of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly prior to the CME eruption. Through fitting their height evolution with a function consisting of linear and exponential components, we determine the onset time of the FR impulsive acceleration with high temporal accuracy for the first time. Using this onset time, we divide the evolution of the FRs in the low corona into two phases: a slow rise phase and an impulsive acceleration phase. In the slow rise phase of the FR1, the appearance of sporadic EUV and UV brightening and the strong shearing along the polarity inverse line indicates that the quasi-separatrix-layer reconnection likely initiates the slow rise. On the other hand for the FR2, we mainly contribute its slow rise to the FR1 eruption, which partially opened the overlying field and thus decreased the magnetic restriction. At the onset of the impulsive acceleration phase, the FR1 (FR2) reaches the critical height of 84.4$pm$11.2 Mm (86.2$pm$13.0 Mm) where the decline of the overlying field with height is fast enough to trigger the torus instability. After a very short interval ($sim$2 minutes), the flare emission began to enhance. These results reveal the compound activity involving multiple magnetic FRs and further suggest that the ideal torus instability probably plays the essential role of initiating the impulsive acceleration of CMEs.
Continuous observations were performed of a quiescent prominence with the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) on board the /emph{Hinode} satellite on 2006 December 23--24. A peculiar slowly-rising column of $/sim10^{4}$ K plasma develops from the lower atmosphere during the observations. The apparent ascent speed of the column is 2 km s$^{-1}$, while the fine structures of the column exhibit much faster motion of up to 20 km s$^{-1}$. The column eventually becomes a faint low-lying prominence. Associated with the appearance of the column, an overlying coronal cavity seen in the X-ray and EUV moves upward at $/sim$5 km s$^{-1}$. We discuss the relationship between these episodes, and suggest that they are due to the emergence of a helical flux rope that undergoes reconnection with lower coronal fields, possibly carrying material into the coronal cavity. Under the assumption of the emerging flux scenario, the lower velocity of 2 km s$^{-1}$ and the higher one of 20 km s$^{-1}$ in the column are attributed to the rising motion of the emerging flux and to the outflow driven by magnetic reconnection between the emerging flux and the pre-existing coronal field, respectively. The present paper gives a coherent explanation of the enigmatic phenomenon of the rising column with the emergence of the helical rope, and its effect on the corona. We discuss the implications that the emergence of such a helical rope has on the dynamo process in the convection zone.
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