The Launch and Early Evolution of a CME Flux Rope
Abstract
We present a narrative of the launch and early evolution of a flux rope comprised within the coronal mass ejection (CME) that left the Sun on 12 December 2008. The two STEREO spacecraft were near quadrature at that time, so we were afforded a unique view of this flux rope from along its edge and down its barrel simultaneously using STEREO's EUVI cameras. We find that a sequence of seemingly separate CMEs observed in the corona and solar wind were actually manifestations of the same flux rope passing through the imagers' fields of view at different times. The launch begins with a small solar flare at the northern-most end of a pre-formed flux rope, which lifts off from this end first via the tether-cutting mechanism. Other segments of the flux rope follow this launch, and a filament is observed to roll over the top of these segments and pour back into the solar disk, thereby indicating the mass draining mechanism at play. The southern end of the flux rope remains fixed to the Sun, leading to an eventual stress-fracture and bisection of the flux rope. The severed southern end eventually disconnects from the Sun a day later via what appears to be the kink instability mechanism. This narrative, describing the interplay between three separate onset mechanisms for simple CME during a period of extremely low solar activity, demonstrates the complexity of the physics of CME onset.
- Publication:
-
AAS/Solar Physics Division Abstracts #44
- Pub Date:
- July 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013SPD....44...14H