The Rayleigh-Taylor Instability and the role of Prominences in the Chromosphere-Corona Mass Cycle
Abstract
We review recent results in the study of so-called "prominence bubbles", a buoyant instability discovered in quiescent solar prominences by the Hinode/SOT instrument in 2007. Analysis of the plasma flows along the boundary of the bubbles indicates that shear flows leading to Kelvin-Helmholtz instability waves can develop into the seed perturbations triggering the Rayleigh-Taylor instability. The non-linear phase of the RT instability leads to the formation of large turbulent plumes that transport the bubble plasma (and presumably magnetic flux) into the overlying coronal flux rope. We propose that the upward turbulent transport of hot bubble plasma and the downflows of cooler chromospheric plasma in the prominence are related aspects of a large-scale "chromosphere-corona mass cycle" in which hot plasma and magnetic flux and helicity from the chromosphere are transported upwards while the cooler prominence plasma downflows, which decouple from the magnetic field they are originally frozen-into, represent the condensation return flows of the cycle. This cycling enables a mechanism by which magnetic flux and helicity build up in the coronal flux rope while mass drains out of the flux rope, eventually triggering a "loss of confinement" eruption in the form of a CME.
- Publication:
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American Astronomical Society Meeting Abstracts #224
- Pub Date:
- June 2014
- Bibcode:
- 2014AAS...22421201B