Resolving the solar prominence/filament paradox using the magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor instability

Prominences and filaments are manifestations of magnetized, levitated plasma within the solar coronal atmosphere. Their structure is assumed to be driven by the ambient magnetic field, but various open questions pertaining to their formation and evolution persist. In particular, the discrepancy between their appearance if projected against the solar disk or at the limb remain unexplained. State-of-the-art magnetohydrodynamic simulations yield a fully three-dimensional model that successfully unites the extreme ultraviolet and hydrogen Hα views of quiescent prominences that contain radial striations with the equivalent on-disk filaments comprised of finite width threads. We analyse all hydromagnetic sources of the vorticity evolution and find it consistent with the nonlinear development of the magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor instability. We show that this universal gravitational interchange process can explain the apparent dichotomy of the quiescent prominence/filament appearances. Our simulation could also be used to predict what the instruments associated with the Solar Orbiter and the Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) will observe.