Magnetic reconnection driven by filament eruption in the 7 June 2011 event
Abstract
During an unusually massive filament eruption on 7 June 2011, SDO/AIA imaged for the first time significant EUV emission around a magnetic reconnection region in the solar corona. The reconnection occurred between magnetic fields of the laterally expanding CME and a neighbouring active region. A pre-existing quasi-separatrix layer was activated in the process. This scenario is supported by data-constrained numerical simulations of the eruption. Observations show that dense cool filament plasma was re-directed and heated in situ, producing coronal-temperature emission around the reconnection region. These results provide the first direct observational evidence, supported by MHD simulations and magnetic modelling, that a large-scale re-configuration of the coronal magnetic field takes place during solar eruptions via the process of magnetic reconnection.
- Publication:
-
Nature of Prominences and their Role in Space Weather
- Pub Date:
- January 2014
- DOI:
- 10.1017/S1743921313011745
- Bibcode:
- 2014IAUS..300..502V
- Keywords:
-
- MHD;
- instabilities;
- Sun: activity;
- magnetic fields;
- coronal mass ejections (CMEs);
- filaments;
- methods: numerical;
- data analysis