Prominence Formation Associated with an Emerging Helical Flux Rope

Abstract

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.

26 pages, 12 figures. Accepted in ApJ

References in corpus (4)

• The Solar Optical Telescope for the Hinode Mission: An Overview
• Emergence of a Helical Flux Rope Under an Active Region Prominence
• Magnetic flux emergence in granular convection: Radiative MHD simulations and observational signatures
• Relationships between magnetic foot points and G-band bright structures

Cited by in corpus (43)

• Physics of Solar Prominences: II - Magnetic Structure and Dynamics
• Solar filament eruptions and their physical role in triggering Coronal Mass Ejections
• Slow Rise and Partial Eruption of a Double-Decker Filament. I Observations and Interpretation
• Origin and Structures of Solar Eruptions I: Magnetic Flux Rope (Invited Review)
• An active region filament studied simultaneously in the chromosphere and photosphere: I - Magnetic structure
• Magnetic Flux Ropes in the Solar Corona: Structure and Evolution toward Eruption
• Properties of solar plage from a spatially coupled inversion of Hinode SP data
• Topological Analysis of Emerging Bipole Clusters Producing Violent Solar Events
• Reconnection-Condensation Model for Solar Prominence Formation
• Witnessing tether-cutting reconnection at the onset of a partial eruption
• Solar Magnetic Flux Ropes
• The formation of an inverse S-shaped active-region filament driven by sunspot motion and magnetic reconnection
• Quiescent prominence dynamics observed with the Hinode Solar Optical Telescope . II. Prominence Bubble Boundary Layer Characteristics and the Onset of a Coupled Kelvin-Helmholtz Rayleigh-Taylor Instability
• An active region filament studied simultaneously in the chromosphere and photosphere. II. Doppler velocities
• The 3D structure of an active region filament as extrapolated from photospheric and chromospheric observations
• The eruption of a small-scale emerging flux rope as the driver of an M-class flare and a coronal mass ejection
• Formation of an active region filament driven by a series of jets
• Spatial and temporal distributions of transient horizontal magnetic fields with deep exposure
• Generation of electric currents in the chromosphere via neutral-ion drag
• Formation and material supply of an active-region filament associated with newly emerging flux
• Helical motions of fine-structure prominence threads observed by Hinode and IRIS
• A rising cool column as signature for helical flux emergence and formation of prominence and coronal cavity
• Multi-Wavelength Observations of a Flux Rope Failed in the Eruption and Associated M-Class Flare from NOAA AR 11045
• Filament Eruption and Its Reformation Caused by Emerging Magnetic Flux
• On Signatures of Twisted Magnetic Flux Tube Emergence
• Formation of a Magnetic Flux Rope in the Early Emergence Phase of NOAA Active Region 12673
• Impact of Dynamic State on the Mass Condensation Rate of Solar Prominences
• Magnetic Field Modeling of hot channels in Four Flare/CME Events
• The Formation of a Small-scale Filament after Flux Emergence on the Quiet Sun
• How eruptions of a small filament feed materials to a nearby larger-scaled filament
• Simulation of a flux emergence event and comparison with observations by Hinode
• The Evolution of Sunspot Magnetic Fields Associated with a Solar Flare
• Supergranular-scale magnetic flux emergence beneath an unstable filament
• Formation of a solar Ha filament from orphan penumbrae
• Grow-up of a Filament Channel by Intermittent Small-scale Magnetic Reconnection
• Data-constrained MHD simulation for the eruption of a filament-sigmoid system in solar active region 11520
• Naked emergence of an anti-Hale active region I. Overall evolution and magnetic properties
• The dynamics of AR 12700 in its early emerging phase I: interchange reconnection
• The association between sunspot magnetic fields and superpenumbral fibrils
• The Observations of Magnetic Reconnection During the Interaction Process of Two Active Region Filaments
• Solar photospheric velocities measured in space: a comparison between SO/PHI-HRT and SDO/HMI
• Observations of Photospheric Magnetic Structure below a Dark Filament using the Hinode Spectro-Polarimeter
• The prominence driven forced reconnection in the solar corona and associated plasma dynamics