Hot prominence spicules launched from turbulent cool solar prominences

Abstract

A solar filament is a dense cool condensation that is supported and thermally insulated by magnetic fields in the rarefied hot corona. Its evolution and stability, leading to either an eruption or disappearance, depend on its coupling with the surrounding hot corona through a thin transition region, where the temperature steeply rises. However, the heating and dynamics of this transition region remain elusive. We report extreme-ultraviolet observations of quiescent filaments from the Solar Dynamics Observatory that reveal prominence spicules propagating through the transition region of the filament-corona system. These thin needle-like jet features are generated and heated to at least 0.7 MK by turbulent motions of the material in the filament. We suggest that the prominence spicules continuously channel the heated mass into the corona and aid in the filament evaporation and decay. Our results shed light on the turbulence-driven heating in magnetized condensations that are commonly observed on the Sun and in the interstellar medium.

Online movie available at https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/olm/2019/07/aa36027-19/aa36027-19.html

References in corpus (4)

• Prevalence of Small-scale Jets from the Networks of the Solar Transition Region and Chromosphere
• On the generation of solar spicules and Alfvénic waves
• JHelioviewer - Time-dependent 3D visualisation of solar and heliospheric data
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Cited by in corpus (5)

• The Solar Orbiter mission -- Science overview
• Coronal Mini-jets in an Activated Solar Tornado-like Prominence
• Solar jets observed with the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS)
• Reconfiguration and eruption of a solar filament by magnetic reconnection with an emerging magnetic field
• Formation of a solar filament by magnetic reconnection and coronal condensation