Velocities of an Erupting Filament

Abstract

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 He i 10830 Å and Hα spectra from the Dunn Solar Telescope, full-disk Dopplergrams of He i 10830 Å from the Chromospheric Telescope, and EUV and coronograph data from SDO and STEREO. Pre-eruption line-of-sight velocities from an inversion of He i with 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 He i velocity maps. The distribution of velocities evolves from Gaussian to strongly asymmetric. The maximal optical depth of He i 10830 Å decreased from τ = 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−1 and 10 to 20 Mm, respectively. All data sources agree that the filament rose with an exponential acceleration reaching 7.4 m s−2 that increased to a final velocity of 430 km s−1 at 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.