Toward a Unified Explanation for the Three-part Structure of Solar Coronal Mass Ejections

Abstract

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are associated with the eruption of magnetic flux ropes (MFRs), which usually appear as hot channels in active regions and coronal cavities in quiet-Sun regions. CMEs often exhibit the classical three-part structure in the lower corona when imaged with white-light coronagraphs, including the bright front, dark cavity, and bright core. The bright core and dark cavity have been regarded as the erupted prominence and MFR, respectively, for several decades. However, recent studies clearly demonstrated that both the prominence and hot-channel MFR can be observed as the CME core. The current research presents a three-part CME resulted from the eruption of a coronal prominence cavity on 2010 October 7 with observations from two vantage perspectives, i.e., edge-on from the Earth and face-on from the Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory (STEREO). Our observations illustrates two important results: (1) For the first time, the erupting coronal cavity is recorded as a channel-like structure in the extreme-ultraviolet passband, analogous to the hot-channel morphology, and is dubbed as warm channel; (2) Both the prominence and warm-channel MFR (coronal cavity) in the extreme-ultraviolet passbands evolve into the CME core in the white-light coronagraphs of STEREO-A. The results support that we are walking toward a unified explanation for the three-part structure of CMEs, in which both prominences and MFRs (hot or warm channels) are responsible for the bright core.

12 pages, 5 figures, accepted by ApJ

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Cited by in corpus (7)

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• On the Nature of the Three-part Structure of Solar Coronal Mass Ejections
• The Structure of Coronal Mass Ejections Recorded by the K-Coronagraph at Mauna Loa Solar Observatory
• Rapid Rotation of an Erupting Prominence and the Associated Coronal Mass Ejection on 13 May 2013
• Failed Solar Eruption of A Multi-thermal Flux Rope
• Heating of quiescent coronal loops caused by nearby eruptions observed with the Solar Dynamics Observatory and the Solar Upper Transition Region Imager
• Probing Velocity Dispersion inside CMEs in Inner Corona: New Insights on CME Initiation