Evolution of Magnetic Rayleigh–Taylor Instability into the Outer Solar Corona and Low Interplanetary Space

Abstract

We analyze the observations from Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO)-A&B/COR-1 of an eruptive prominence in the intermediate corona on 7 June 2011 at 08:45 UT, which consists of magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor (MRT) unstable plasma segments. Its upper northward segment shows spatio-temporal evolution of MRT instability in form of finger structures upto the outer corona and low inter-planetary space. Using method of Dolei et al.(2014), It is estimated that the density in each bright finger is greater than corresponding dark region lying below of it in the surrounding intermediate corona. The instability is evolved due to wave perturbations that are parallel to the magnetic field at the density interface. We conjecture that the prominence plasma is supported by tension component of the magnetic field against gravity. Using linear stability theory, magnetic field is estimated as 21-40 mG to suppress growth of MRT in the observed finger structures. In the southward plasma segment, a horn-like structure is observed at 11:55 UT in the intermediate corona that also indicates MRT instability. Falling blobs are also observed in both the plasma segments. In the outer corona upto 6-13 solar radii, the mushroom-like plasma structures have been identified in the upper northward MRT unstable plasma segment using STEREO-A/COR-2. These structures most likely grew due to the breaking and twisting of fingers at large spatial scales in weaker magnetic fields. In the lower inter-planetary space upto 20 solar radii, these structures are fragmented into various small-scale localized plasma spikes most likely due to turbulent mixing.

Observation of All Pre- and Post-reconnection Structures Involved in Three-dimensional Reconnection Geometries in Solar Eruptions

“…Properties of filament blobs, some of which were falling back to the Sun, were investigated by Innes et al (2012), Williams et al (2013), Carlyle et al (2014), and Thompson & Young (2016); the impacts themselves by Gilbert et al (2013), Reale et al (2014), and Innes et al (2016). Bright filament ejecta in the outer corona were studied by Susino et al (2015), Wood et al (2016), and Mishra et al (2018). However, none of these studies dealt with the initial and impulsive phases of the eruption, and the accompanying reconnection in the low corona at these times.…”

Propagation of MRT Unstable Plasma Spikes in the Inter-planetary Space

“…A prominence eruption occurred on June 7 th 2011 as observed by Solar TErrestrial RElations Observatory (STEREO). It is observed that the eruptive prominence is magnetic Rayleigh-Taylor unstable from the inner corona to the low interplanetary space (Innes et al 2012;Carlyle et al 2014;Mishra et al 2018). We demonstrate that the eruptive prominence eruption moves in form of the MRT unstable plasma spikes into the inter-planetary space reaching upto 1 A.U.…”

Magnetic Rayleigh–Taylor instability at a contact discontinuity with an oblique magnetic field

“…7: Solutions of the dispersion relation for a given growth time in terms of magnetic field inclination (θ) and propagation direction (α), for two observed prominence plumes. Observational data has been taken from (Mishra & Srivastava 2019).…”