English

H$\alpha$ and EUV observations of a partial CME

Solar and Stellar Astrophysics 2015-05-27 v1

Abstract

We have obtained Hα\alpha high spatial and time resolution observations of the upper solar chromosphere and supplemented these with multi-wavelength observations from the Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) and the {\it Hinode} ExtremeUltraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS). The Hα\alpha observations were conducted on 11 February 2012 with the Hydrogen-Alpha Rapid Dynamics Camera (HARDcam) instrument at the National Solar Observatory's Dunn Solar Telescope. Our Hα\alpha observations found large downflows of chromospheric material returning from coronal heights following a failed prominence eruption. We have detected several large condensations ("blobs") returning to the solar surface at velocities of \approx200 km s1^{-1} in both Hα\alpha and several SDO AIA band passes. The average derived size of these "blobs" in Hα\alpha is 500 by 3000 km2^2 in the directions perpendicular and parallel to the direction of travel, respectively. A comparison of our "blob" widths to those found from coronal rain, indicate there are additional smaller, unresolved "blobs" in agreement with previous studies and recent numerical simulations. Our observed velocities and decelerations of the "blobs" in both Hα\alpha and SDO bands are less than those expected for gravitational free-fall and imply additional magnetic or gas pressure impeding the flow. We derived a kinetic energy \approx2 orders of magnitude lower for the main eruption than a typical CME, which may explain its partial nature.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1503.03982,
  title  = {H$\alpha$ and EUV observations of a partial CME},
  author = {Damian J. Christian and David B. Jess and Patrick Antolin and Mihalis Mathioudakis},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1503.03982},
  year   = {2015}
}

Comments

31 pages, 8 Figures, 1 Table and 1 Video (linked to Figure 2). Accepted in ApJ