Acceleration phases of a solar filament during its eruption

Abstract

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.

11 pages, 3 figures (Accepted by the Astrophysical Journal Letters)

References in corpus (7)

• Torus instability
• Observation of An Evolving Magnetic Flux Rope Prior To and During A Solar Eruption
• On the Relationship Between a Hot-channel-like Solar Magnetic Flux Rope and its embedded Prominence
• Direct observations of magnetic flux rope formation during a solar coronal mass ejection
• Catastrophic eruption of magnetic flux rope in the corona and solar wind with and without magnetic reconnection
• First Taste of Hot Channel in Interplanetary Space
• Two Energy Release Processes for CMEs: MHD Catastrophe and Magnetic Reconnection

Cited by in corpus (8)

• Toward a Unified Explanation for the Three-part Structure of Solar Coronal Mass Ejections
• HXR emission from an activated flux rope and subsequent evolution of an eruptive long duration solar flare
• On the Nature of the Three-part Structure of Solar Coronal Mass Ejections
• Solar Cycle Dependence of ICME Composition
• Reconfiguration and eruption of a solar filament by magnetic reconnection with an emerging magnetic field
• Finding the critical decay index in solar prominence eruptions
• An imaging study of a complex solar coronal radio eruption
• Composition Comparison between ICMEs from Active Regions and Quiet-Sun Regions