Prominence eruption initiated by helical kink-instability of an embedded flux rope

Abstract

We study the triggering mechanism of a limb-prominence eruption and the associated coronal mass ejection near AR 12342 using SDO and LASCO/SOHO observations. The prominence is seen with an embedded flux thread (FT) at one end and bifurcates from the middle to a different footpoint location. The morphological evolution of the FT is similar to an unstable flux rope (FR), which we regard as prominence embedded FR. The FR twist exceeds the critical value. In addition, the morphology of the prominence plasma in 304Å~images marks the helical nature of the magnetic skeleton with a total of 2.96 turns along arc length. The potential field extrapolation model indicates that the critical height of the background magnetic field gradient falls within the inner corona (105Mm) consistent with the extent of coronal plasma loops. These results suggest that the helical kink instability in the embedded FR caused the slow rise of the prominence to a height of the torus instability domain. Moreover, the differential emission measure analysis unveils heating of the prominence plasma to coronal temperatures during eruption, suggesting a reconnection-related heating underneath the upward rising embedded FR. The prominence starts with a slow rise motion of 10km/s, followed by fast and slow acceleration phases having an average acceleration of $28.9m/s^2$, $2.4m/s^2$ in C2, C3 field of view respectively. As predicted by previous numerical simulations, the observed synchronous kinematic profiles of the CME leading edge and the core supports the involved FR instability in the prominence initiation.

arXiv commentAccepted in ApJ, 13 pages, 9 figures

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• Modeling the thermodynamic evolution of Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs) using their kinematics
• Observational Analysis on the Early Evolution of a CME Flux-rope: Pre-flare reconnection and Flux-rope's Footpoint Drift
• Rapid Rotation of an Erupting Prominence and the Associated Coronal Mass Ejection on 13 May 2013
• Finding the critical decay index in solar prominence eruptions
• Eruption of EUV Hot-Channel near Solar Limb and Associated Moving Type-IV Radio Burst