Abstract
Abstract We present observations and modeling of the magnetic field configuration, morphology, and dynamics of a large-scale, high-latitude filament eruption observed by the Solar Dynamics Observatory. We analyze the 2015 July 9–10 filament eruption and the evolution of the resulting coronal mass ejection (CME) through the solar corona. The slow streamer-blowout CME leaves behind an elongated post-eruption arcade above the extended polarity inversion line that is only poorly visible in extreme ultraviolet (EUV) disk observations and does not resemble a typical bright flare-loop system. Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulation results from our data-inspired modeling of this eruption compare favorably with the EUV and white-light coronagraph observations. We estimate the reconnection flux from the simulation’s flare-arcade growth and examine the magnetic-field orientation and evolution of the erupting prominence, highlighting the transition from an erupting sheared-arcade filament channel into a streamer-blowout flux-rope CME. Our results represent the first numerical modeling of a global-scale filament eruption where multiple ambiguous and complex observational signatures in EUV and white light can be fully understood and explained with the MHD simulation. In this context, our findings also suggest that the so-called stealth CME classification, as a driver of unexpected or “problem” geomagnetic storms, belongs more to a continuum of observable/nonobservable signatures than to separate or distinct eruption processes.
Highlights
Large-scale filament eruptions that drive coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are some of the most spectacular energetic and dynamic transients in the solar corona
After its eruption from the Sun, the 2015 July 9–10 CME appeared in coronagraph imagery from the Large Angle Spectroscopic Coronagraph (LASCO; Brueckner et al 1995) on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO; Domingo et al 1995)
We can interpret the evolution of the white-light structure in the coronagraph data as corresponding to the initial east-limb component of the CME generated during the impulsive phase of the eruption that shows a higher velocity, followed by the west-limb component that presents as the leg of the extended CME flux rope opening up toward the observer with a lower velocity
Summary
Large-scale filament eruptions that drive coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are some of the most spectacular energetic and dynamic transients in the solar corona. The simulation’s eruptive-flare reconnection gradually released ∼1030 erg of magnetic energy over 20 hr and over such a large spatial extent that the estimated energy flux into the post-eruption arcade system was unlikely to cause observable temperature increase or emission enhancement, providing a natural explanation for the lack of “flare-like” lowcoronal signatures On this basis, we argued that the initiation mechanism for stealth CMEs is not fundamentally different from most slow streamer-blowout CMEs: they represent the lowest-energy range of the CME distribution.
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