No Arabic abstract
From recent high resolution observations obtained with the Swedish 1 m Solar Telescope in La Palma, we detect swaying motions of individual filament threads in the plane of the sky. The oscillatory character of these motions are comparable with oscillatory Doppler signals obtained from corresponding filament threads. Simultaneous recordings of motions in the line of sight and in the plane of the sky give information about the orientation of the oscillatory plane. These oscillations are interpreted in the context of the magnetohydrodynamic theory. Kink magnetohydrodynamic waves supported by the thread body are proposed as an explanation of the observed thread oscillations. On the basis of this interpretation and by means of seismological arguments, we give an estimation of the thread Alfven speed and magnetic field strength by means of seismological arguments.
As one of the main formation mechanisms of solar filament formation, the chromospheric evaporation-coronal condensation model has been confirmed by numerical simulations to explain the formation of filament threads very well in flux tubes with single dips. However, coronal magnetic extrapolations indicated that some magnetic field lines might possess more than one dip. It is expected that the formation process would be significantly different in this case compared to a single-dipped magnetic flux tube. In this paper, based on the evaporation-condensation model, we study filament thread formation in double-dipped magnetic flux tubes by numerical simulations. We find that only with particular combinations of magnetic configuration and heating, e.g., concentrated localized heating and a long magnetic flux tube with deep dips, can two threads form and persist in a double-dipped magnetic flux tube. Comparing our parametric survey with observations, we conclude that such magnetically connected threads due to multiple dips are more likely to exist in quiescent filaments than in active-region filaments. Moreover, we find that these threads are usually shorter than independently trapped threads, which might be one of the reasons why quiescent filaments have short threads. These characteristics of magnetically connected threads could also explain barbs and vertical threads in quiescent filaments.
Filament eruptions often lead to coronal mass ejections (CMEs), which can affect critical technological systems in space and on the ground when they interact with the geo-magnetosphere in high speeds. Therefore, it is an important issue to investigate the acceleration mechanisms of CMEs in solar/space physics. Based on observations and simulations, the resistive magnetic reconnection and the ideal instability of magnetic flux rope have been proposed to accelerate CMEs. However, it remains elusive whether both of them play a comparable role during a particular eruption. It has been extremely difficult to separate their contributions as they often work in a close time sequence during one fast acceleration phase. Here we report an intriguing filament eruption event, which shows two apparently separated fast acceleration phases and provides us an excellent opportunity to address the issue. Through analyzing the correlations between velocity (acceleration) and soft (hard) X-ray profiles, we suggest that the instability and magnetic reconnection make a major contribution during the first and second fast acceleration phases, respectively. Further, we find that both processes have a comparable contribution to accelerate the filament in this event.
We have catalogued 196 filament oscillations from the GONG $H{alpha}$ network data during several months near the maximum of solar cycle 24 (January - June 2014). Selected examples from the catalog are described in detail, along with our statistical analyses of all events. Oscillations were classified according to their velocity amplitude: 106 small-amplitude oscillations (SAOs), with velocities $<10mathrm{, km ; s^{-1}}$, and 90 large-amplitude oscillations (LAOs), with velocities $>10mathrm{, km ; s^{-1}}$. Both SAOs and LAOs are common, with one event of each class every two days on the visible side of the Sun. For nearly half of the events we identified their apparent trigger. The period distribution has a mean value of 58$pm$15 min for both types of oscillations. The distribution of the damping time per period peaks at $tau/P=1.75$ and $1.25$ for SAOs and LAOs respectively. We confirmed that LAO damping rates depend nonlinearly on the oscillation velocity. The angle between the direction of motion and the filament spine has a distribution centered at $27^circ$ for all filament types. This angle agrees with the observed direction of filament-channel magnetic fields, indicating that most of the catalogued events are longitudinal (i.e., undergo field-aligned motions). We applied seismology to determine the average radius of curvature in the magnetic dips, $Rapprox89$ Mm, and the average minimum magnetic-field strength, $Bapprox16$ G. The catalog is available to the community online, and is intended to be expanded to cover at least 1 solar cycle.
Coronal holes are well accepted to be source regions of the fast solar wind. As one of the common structures in coronal holes, coronal plumes might contribute to the origin of the nascent solar wind. To estimate the contribution of coronal plumes to the nascent solar wind, we make the first attempt to estimate their populations in solar polar coronal holes. By comparing the observations viewed from two different angles taken by the twin satellites of STEREO and the results of Monte Carlo simulations, we estimate about 16--27 plumes rooted in an area of $4times10^4$ arcsec$^2$ of the polar coronal holes near the solar minimum, which occupy about 2--3.4% of the area. Based on these values, the contribution of coronal plumes to the nascent solar wind has also been discussed. A further investigation indicates that more precise number of coronal plumes can be worked out with observations from three or more viewing angles.
There is observational evidence of the presence of small-amplitude transverse magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves with a wide range of frequencies in the threads of solar prominences. It is believed that the waves are driven at the photosphere and propagate along the magnetic field lines up to prominences suspended in the corona. The dissipation of MHD wave energy in the partially ionized prominence plasma is a heating mechanism whose relevance needs to be explored. Here we consider a simple 1D model for a non-uniform thin thread and investigate the heating associated with dissipation of Alfven waves. The model assumes an ad hoc density profile and a uniform pressure, while the temperature and ionization degree are self-consistently computed considering either LTE or non-LTE approximations for the hydrogen ionization. A broadband driver for Alfven waves is placed at one end of the magnetic field line, representing photospheric excitation. The Alfvenic perturbations along the thread are obtained by solving the linearized MHD equations for a partially ionized plasma in the single-fluid approximation.We find that wave heating in the partially ionized part of the thread is significant enough to compensate for energy losses due to radiative cooling. A greater amount of heating is found in the LTE case because the ionization degree for core prominence temperatures is lower than that in the non-LTE approximation. This results in a greater level of dissipation due to ambipolar diffusion in the LTE case. Conversely, in the hot coronal part of the model, the plasma is fully ionized and wave heating is negligible. The results of this simple model suggest that MHD wave heating can be relevant for the energy balance in prominences. Further studies based on more elaborate models are required.