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Complete replacement of magnetic flux in a flux rope during a coronal mass ejection

Nature Astronomy volume 7, pages 815–824 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

Solar coronal mass ejections are the most energetic events in the Solar System. In their standard formation model, a magnetic flux rope builds up into a coronal mass ejection through magnetic reconnection that continually converts overlying, untwisted magnetic flux into twisted flux enveloping the pre-existing rope. However, only a minority of coronal mass ejections carry a coherent magnetic flux rope as their core structure, which casts doubt on the universality of this orderly wrapping process. Here we provide observational evidence of a different formation and eruption mechanism of a magnetic flux rope from an S-shaped thread, where its magnetic flux is fully replaced via flare reconnections. One of the footpoints of the sigmoidal feature slipped and expanded during the formation, and then moved to a completely new place, associated with the highly dynamical evolution of flare ribbons and a twofold increase in magnetic flux through the footpoint, during the eruption. Such a configuration is not predicted by standard formation models or numerical simulations and highlights the three-dimensional nature of magnetic reconnections between the flux rope and the surrounding magnetic field.

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Fig. 1: Overview of 2014 September 10 sigmoid event.
Fig. 2: Appearance of the seed MFR at 16:45 ut.
Fig. 3: Temperature structure of the seed MFR.
Fig. 4: Temporal evolution of the event.
Fig. 5: Footpoint migration during the MFR eruption.
Fig. 6: Evolution of flare ribbons in relation to coronal dimmings.

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Data availability

The data used in the study are publicly available for download from the corresponding mission archives. SDO data are available at http://jsoc.stanford.edu/ajax/lookdata.html; IRIS data are available at https://iris.lmsal.com/data.html.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge SDO and IRIS teams for the science data. IRIS is a NASA Small Explorer Mission developed and operated by LMSAL with mission operations executed at NASA Ames Research Center and major contributions to downlink communications funded by ESA and the Norwegian Space Centre. T.G. thanks the BBSO staff for providing Hα data. T.G., R.L., W.W., M.X. and Y.M. acknowledge support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC 42188101, 42274204, 11903032, 11925302, 12003032) and the Strategic Priority Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDB41030100). A.M.V. acknowledges the Austria Science Fund (FWF), project I-4555N. T.L. acknowledges support from NSFC 12222306. T.G. also acknowledges support from the CAS Key Laboratory of Solar Activity.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Earth and Space Sciences/CAS Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology/CAS Key Laboratory of Geospace Environment, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

    Tingyu Gou, Rui Liu, Wensi Wang, Mengjiao Xu & Yuming Wang

  2. Collaborative Innovation Center of Astronautical Science and Technology, Hefei, China

    Rui Liu & Yuming Wang

  3. Institute of Physics & Kanzelhöhe Observatory for Solar and Environmental Research, University of Graz, Graz, Austria

    Astrid M. Veronig

  4. Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA

    Bin Zhuang

  5. CAS Key Laboratory of Solar Activity, National Astronomical Observatories, Beijing, China

    Ting Li

  6. School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Ting Li

  7. Mengcheng National Geophysical Observatory, University of Science and Technology of China, Mengcheng, China

    Wensi Wang

  8. Deep Space Exploration Laboratory, Hefei, China

    Mengjiao Xu & Yuming Wang

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  1. Tingyu Gou
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Contributions

T.G. and R.L. led the study and analysis, interpreted the data, and wrote the manuscript. A.M.V. discussed the analysis and contributed to the interpretation, conclusion, and writing of the manuscript. B.Z. led the in situ data analysis and discussed the interpretation. T.L. and Y.W. discussed the results and contributed to the interpretation. W.W. and M.X. contributed to the SDO and in situ data analyses. All authors participated in the discussion and contributed to finalizing the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Tingyu Gou or Rui Liu.

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Nature Astronomy thanks Hongqiang Song and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Hα observation of the filament from the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO).

Panels (a-c) show the Hα line center images before, during, and after the sigmoid eruption, respectively. The arrow in panel (a) denotes the filament aligned with the main PIL of the active region.

Extended Data Fig. 2 MFR buildup during the flare precursor phase.

From the top to bottom are SDO/AIA 131 Å base-difference images, ratio of SDO/AIA 1600 Å and 1700 Å images, SDO/AIA 131 Å images zooming in on the eastern foot of the sigmoid, and simultaneous IRIS SJI 1400 Å images (Methods). The white dotted rectangle in panel (b) indicates the FOV of panels (c & d). Three white lines in panels (a & d) indicate the virtual slits S1-S3 for the stack plots in Fig. 4(c–e) (Methods), whose starting points are labeled as ‘0’. The yellow arrow in the IRIS image indicates the extending direction of the ribbon. Yellow dotted lines in the AIA 131 Å image at 17:12 UT denote the location of the trapezoidal ribbon observed in IRIS 1400 Å at the same time (see also Fig. 5a & d).

Extended Data Fig. 3 DEM results in different evolutionary phases.

(a,b) EM maps in temperature ranges of 5-10 and 10-20 MK, respectively. (c) Maps of the DEM-weighted mean temperature (Methods). (d) DEM distributions sampled from two locations (4 × 4 pixels2), one on the sigmoid (‘S’) and the other from nearby as a reference (‘R’), in blue and black, respectively. Light blue and gray curves give 250 times of Monte Carlo simulations as an estimation of the DEM uncertainty (Methods). The mean temperature and total EM of the sigmoid sample ‘S’ are annotated.

Extended Data Fig. 4 SDO/AIA and IRIS observations during the MFR eruption phase.

From the top to bottom are SDO/AIA 131 Å, 1600 Å, 335 Å base ratio, and IRIS SJI 1400 Å images. The white dotted rectangle in panel (b) indicates the FOV of panels (c & d). The yellow dotted lines in IRIS 1400 Å are the same as those in Fig. 5 & Extended Data Fig. 2. The yellow arrow indicates the extending direction of the negative ribbon NRn. The white dotted line indicates the virtual slit S4 for the stack plot in Fig. 4f (Methods), with its starting point labeled by ‘0’.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Coronal dimmings during the MFR eruption.

Panels (a-c) show the SDO/AIA 335 Å, 304 Å, and 211 Å images, and panels (d-f) show corresponding base-ratio images.

Extended Data Fig. 6 SDO/AIA observations of the sigmoid eruption.

(a-c) AIA 131 Å and 211 Å running-difference images showing the pre-eruption MFR and the erupting CME. (d-f) AIA observations of coronal dimmings in 171 Å base-difference image, post-flare loops in 94 Å, and flare ribbons in 1600 Å, during the flare decay phase. Two boxes in panel (d) indicate the regions to obtain 171 Å dimming lightcurves in Fig. 4a (Methods).

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Notes, Supplementary Fig. 1 and captions of Supplementary Videos 1–4.

Supplementary Video 1

SDO/AIA observation of the solar eruption near the disk centre. The composite RGB images are made from AIA 131 Å (green), 171 Å (orange) and 1,600 Å (blue) channels, which are sensitive to plasma temperatures of about 11, 0.7 and 0.1 MK, respectively.

Supplementary Video 2

SDO/AIA multiwavelength observation starting from several hours before the eruption.

Supplementary Video 3

SDO/AIA and IRIS observation of the flux-rope formation and eruption. IRIS’s FOV only covers the eastern part of the event, as indicated by the white dotted rectangle. Ratios of AIA 1,600 Å and 1,700 Å images are used to highlight the ribbon morphology during the precursor phase before 17:21 ut.

Supplementary Video 4

SDO/AIA 335 Å and its base-ratio images featuring coronal dimmings during the solar eruption.

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Gou, T., Liu, R., Veronig, A.M. et al. Complete replacement of magnetic flux in a flux rope during a coronal mass ejection. Nat Astron 7, 815–824 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-01966-2

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