skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.


Title: Velocities of an Erupting Filament
Abstract Solar filaments exist as stable structures for extended periods of time before many of them form the core of a coronal mass ejection (CME). We examine the properties of an erupting filament on 2017 May 29–30 with high-resolution Hei10830 Å and Hαspectra from the Dunn Solar Telescope, full-disk Dopplergrams of Hei10830 Å from the Chromospheric Telescope, and EUV and coronograph data from SDO and STEREO. Pre-eruption line-of-sight velocities from an inversion of Heiwith the HAZEL code exhibit coherent patches of 5 Mm extent that indicate counter-streaming and/or buoyant behavior. During the eruption, individual, aligned threads appear in the Heivelocity maps. The distribution of velocities evolves from Gaussian to strongly asymmetric. The maximal optical depth of Hei10830 Å decreased fromτ= 1.75 to 0.25, the temperature increased by 13 kK, and the average speed and width of the filament increased from 0 to 25 km s−1and 10 to 20 Mm, respectively. All data sources agree that the filament rose with an exponential acceleration reaching 7.4 m s−2that increased to a final velocity of 430 km s−1at 22:24 UT; a CME was associated with this filament eruption. The properties during the eruption favor a kink/torus instability, which requires the existence of a flux rope. We conclude that full-disk chromospheric Dopplergrams can be used to trace the initial phase of on-disk filament eruptions in real time, which might potentially be useful for modeling the source of any subsequent CMEs.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1839306 2050340
PAR ID:
10362514
Author(s) / Creator(s):
; ; ; ; ; ; ;
Publisher / Repository:
DOI PREFIX: 10.3847
Date Published:
Journal Name:
The Astrophysical Journal
Volume:
926
Issue:
1
ISSN:
0004-637X
Format(s):
Medium: X Size: Article No. 18
Size(s):
Article No. 18
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. Abstract We analyze high-resolution observations of an X-1.0 white-light flare, triggered by a filament eruption, on 2022 October 2. The full process of filament formation and subsequent eruption was captured in the Hαpassband by the Visible Imaging Spectrograph (VIS) on board the Goode Solar Telescope (GST) within its center field of view. White-light emissions appear in flare ribbons following the filament eruption and Hαribbon brightening. GST Broadband Filter Imager data show that the continuum intensity, as compared to the nearby quiet-Sun area, has increased by up to 20% in the photospheric TiO band around 7057 Å. The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory reported 10% contrast enhancement in the continuum near Fei6173 Å line. The separation motion of two white-light kernels is recorded by the high-cadence GST/TiO images and is well accompanied by the motion of the VIS Hαflare ribbon leading edge. One kernel, located in a 150 Gauss field within a granulation area, exhibited an average apparent motion speed of 55 km s−1, which is the highest average speed ever reported. The other kernel drifted at 9 km s−1in an 800 Gauss magnetic field area. Hard X-ray (HXR) emissions reaching up to 300 keV have been observed for this flare. The simultaneous occurrence of high-cadence HXR, microwave, and white-light emissions strongly suggests that the energetic particles from the flare directly contribute to the heating. The inverted HXR energy flux density corresponding to 10% TiO brightening is 2.07 ± 0.23 × 1011erg cm−2s−1during the flare peak. 
    more » « less
  2. Abstract Solar magnetic fields are responsible for solar coronal mass ejections and other eruptive phenomena that govern space weather. Today, most of our knowledge about the solar magnetic field topologies was derived from the measurements of the magnetic field of the solar photosphere. The solar chromosphere is dilute, and associated magnetic fields are weak, which makes them difficult to measure. To address this challenging issue, we propose the use of the HeID35876 Å line, together with the HeI10830 Å line, to measure the off-limb weak and moderate chromospheric magnetic fields in the Hanle effect regime. We show that the current approach of using the polarization amplitude or degree cannot reliably retrieve the magnetic fields. We demonstrated that by using the Stokes linear polarization profiles simultaneously with the 5876 and 10830 Å lines, without the use of the circular polarization, chromospheric magnetic fields as low as and down to a few gauss can be measured easily and reliably with today’s instruments. We further demonstrate the potential to measure the weak chromospheric magnetic fields with the Stokes linear polarization profiles by using the He 5876 Å line alone, which has not been fully investigated yet. This work will provide a new technique for future daily synoptic observations for the weak magnetic fields in the solar chromosphere for both the active and quiescent regions, which are still difficult to measure. 
    more » « less
  3. Abstract Minifilament eruptions producing small jets and microflares have mostly been studied based on coronal observations at extreme-ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths. This study presents chromospheric plasma diagnostics of a quiet-Sun minifilament of size ∼ 2″ × 5″ with a sigmoidal shape and an associated microflare observed on 2021 August 7 17:00 UT using high temporal and spatial resolution spectroscopy from the Fast Imaging Solar Spectrograph (FISS) and high-resolution magnetograms from the Near InfraRed Imaging Spectropolarimeter (NIRIS) installed on the 1.6 m Goode Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory. Using FISS Hαand Caii8542 Å line spectra at the time of the minifilament activation we determined a temperature of 8600 K and a nonthermal speed of 7.9 km s−1. During the eruption, the minifilament was no longer visible in the Caii8542 Å line, and only the Hαline spectra were used to find the temperature of the minifilament, which reached 1.2 × 104K and decreased afterward. We estimated thermal energy of 3.6 × 1024erg from the maximum temperature and kinetic energy of 2.6 × 1024erg from the rising speed (18 km s−1) of the minifilament. From the NIRIS magnetograms we found small-scale flux emergence and cancellation coincident with the minifilament eruption, and the magnetic energy change across the conjugate footpoints reaches 7.2 × 1025erg. Such spectroscopic diagnostics of the chromospheric minifilament complement earlier studies of minifilament eruptions made using coronal images. 
    more » « less
  4. Abstract With high-resolution narrowband He i 10830 Å filtergrams from Goode Solar Telescope, we give an extensive analysis for four granule-sized microeruptions which appear as the gentle ejection of material in He i 10830 Å band. The analysis was aided with the EUV data from Atmospheric Imaging Assembly and line-of-sight magnetograms from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory. The microeruptions are situated on magnetic polarity inversion lines (PILs), and their roots are accurately traced down to intergranular lanes. Their durations are different: two microeruptions are repetitive microjets, lasting ∼50 and 27 minutes respectively, while the other two events are singular, lasting ∼5 minutes. For the two microjets, they are continuous and recurrent in the He i 10830 Å band, and the recurrence is quasiperiodic with a period of ∼5 minutes. We found that only transient cospatial EUV brightenings are observed for the longer duration microjets and EUV brightenings are absent for the two singular microeruptions. What is essential to the longer duration microjets is that granules with the concentration of a positive magnetic field persistently transport the magnetic field to the PILs, canceling the opposite magnetic flux and making the base of the two microjets and the underlying granules migrate with the speed of ∼0.25 and 1.0 km s −1 . The observations support the scenario of magnetic reconnection for the quasiperiodic microjets and further show that the reconnection continuously generates multitemperature components, especially the cool component with chromospheric temperature. In addition, the ongoing reconnection is modulated by p-mode oscillations inside the Sun. 
    more » « less
  5. Abstract Atmospheric escape shapes exoplanet evolution and star–planet interactions, with HeI10830 Å absorption serving as a key tracer of mass loss in hot gas giants. However, transit depths vary significantly across observed systems for reasons that remain poorly understood. HD209458b, the archetypal hot-Jupiter, exhibits relatively weak HeI10830 Å and Hαabsorption, which has been interpreted as evidence for a high H/He ratio (98/2), possibly due to diffusive separation. To investigate this possibility and other processes that control these transit depths, we reassess excitation and de-excitation rates for metastable helium and explore the impact of diffusion processes, stellar activity, and tidal forces on the upper atmosphere and transit depths using a model framework spanning the whole atmosphere. Our model reproduces the observed HeItransit depth and Hαupper limit, showing strong diffusive separation. We match the observations assuming a photoelectron efficiency of 20%–40%, depending on the composition of the atmosphere, corresponding to mass-loss rates of 1.9–3 × 1010g s−1. We find that the HeI10830 Å transit depth is sensitive to both stellar activity and diffusion processes, while Hαis largely unaffected due to its strong dependence on Lyαexcitation. These differences may help explain the system-to-system scatter seen in population-level studies of the HeIline. While HeIdata alone may not tightly constrain mass-loss rates or temperatures, they do confirm atmospheric escape and help narrow the viable parameter space when interpreted with physically motivated models. Simultaneous observations of HeI, Hα, and stellar activity indicators provide powerful constraints on upper atmosphere dynamics and composition, even in the absence of full transmission spectra. 
    more » « less