James, AW;
Green, LM;
Palmerio, E;
Valori, G;
Reid, HAS;
Baker, D;
Brooks, DH;
... Kilpua, EKJ; + view all
(2017)
On-Disc Observations of Flux Rope Formation Prior to Its Eruption.
Solar Physics
, 292
(5)
, Article 71. 10.1007/s11207-017-1093-4.
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Abstract
Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are one of the primary manifestations of solar activity and can drive severe space weather effects. Therefore, it is vital to work towards being able to predict their occurrence. However, many aspects of CME formation and eruption remain unclear, including whether magnetic flux ropes are present before the onset of eruption and the key mechanisms that cause CMEs to occur. In this work, the pre-eruptive coronal configuration of an active region that produced an interplanetary CME with a clear magnetic flux rope structure at 1 AU is studied. A forward-S sigmoid appears in extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) data two hours before the onset of the eruption (SOL2012-06-14), which is interpreted as a signature of a right-handed flux rope that formed prior to the eruption. Flare ribbons and EUV dimmings are used to infer the locations of the flux rope footpoints. These locations, together with observations of the global magnetic flux distribution, indicate that an interaction between newly emerged magnetic flux and pre-existing sunspot field in the days prior to the eruption may have enabled the coronal flux rope to form via tether-cutting-like reconnection. Composition analysis suggests that the flux rope had a coronal plasma composition, supporting our interpretation that the flux rope formed via magnetic reconnection in the corona. Once formed, the flux rope remained stable for two hours before erupting as a CME.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | On-Disc Observations of Flux Rope Formation Prior to Its Eruption |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s11207-017-1093-4 |
| Publisher version: | http://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-017-1093-4 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | © 2017, The Author(s). This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Maths and Physical Sciences > Dept of Space and Climate Physics |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1551370 |
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