Flux rope breaking and formation of a rotating blowout jet

Abstract

We analyzed a small flux rope eruption converted into a helical blowout jet in a fan-spine configuration using multi-wavelength observations taken by SDO, which occurred near the limb on 2016 January 9. In our study, first, we estimated the fanspine magnetic configuration with the potential field calculation and found a sinistral small filament inside it. The filament along with the flux rope erupted upward and interacted with the surrounding fan-spine magnetic configuration, where the flux rope breaks in the middle section. We observed compact brightening, flare ribbons and post-flare loops underneath the erupting filament. The northern section of the flux rope reconnected with the surrounding positive polarity, while the southern section straightened. Next, we observed the untwisting motion of the southern leg, which was transformed into a rotating helical blowout jet. The sign of the helicity of the minifilament matches the one of the rotating jet. This is consistent with the jet models presented by Adams et al. (2014) and Sterling et al. (2015). We focused on the fine thread structure of the rotating jet and traced three blobs with the speed of 60-120 km s −1 , while the radial speed of the jet is ∼400 km s −1 . The untwisting motion of the jet accelerated plasma upward along the collimated outer spine field lines, and it finally evolved into a narrow coronal mass ejection at the height of ∼9 R sun . On the basis of detailed analysis, we discussed clear evidence of the scenario of the breaking of the flux rope and the formation of the helical blowout jet in the fan-spine magnetic configuration.

A solar filament disconnected by magnetic reconnection

“…Additionally, we found that the jet rotates counterclockwise if viewed from the top to the footpoint N1 (see the attached movie of Fig. 4), indicating that there may be a flux rope that may be related to the filament before the reconnection (e.g., Joshi et al 2018). Furthermore, the rotation of the jet is also shown in the Hα Dopplergrams (Figs.…”

“…While magnetic reconnection is believed to occur in fan-spine configuration where there may be a mini-filament under the null point, and it can reconnect with spine lines and then form a jet (Joshi et al 2015;Li et al 2017;Xu et al 2017). Although magnetic reconnections associated with filaments, including small-scale filaments, are often reported during their eruptions (e.g., Joshi et al 2018;Yang et al 2017), the detailed process of magnetic reconnection is rarely noticed in the previous studies.…”

Observation and modelling of solar jets

“…Taken together with the results of Panesar et al [66][67][68] they also claim that flux cancellation is the main process whereby the energy is stored prior to eruption in all jets and CMEs, and may also be involved in the triggering process. So far, the finding of blowout jets has been confirmed by many observational studies, and now we recognize that the vast majority of solar jets are caused by magnetic flux cancellation rather than flux emergence [63,[69][70][71][72][73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84]. Recently, high-resolution observational studies have shown that two-sided-loop jets are also associated with flux cancellations and include the eruption of mini-filaments inside the base arches [44,46,49,85,86], and two-sidedloop jets occurring in filament channels may be important for causing the eruption of large filaments [87].…”

“…Shen et al [63,69] studied two blowout jets and found that the erupting mini-filaments directly form the cool component of coronal jets (figure 2). Recently, more and more observational studies have confirmed that blowout jets are driven by mini-filament eruptions or filament channels [73][74][75][76][77][78][79][80][81][82][83][84]97,98]; some authors even proposed that all coronal jets originate from mini-filament eruptions, and their generation resembles the eruption of large-scale, energetic filament/CME eruptions [36,65,99].…”

Two successive partial mini-filament confined ejections

“…Recent investigations have associated coronal jets to the eruption of socalled mini-filaments, whose plasma provides most of the ejected material (Shen et al, 2012;Adams et al, 2014;Sterling et al, 2015Sterling et al, , 2016Panesar et al, 2016;Joshi et al, 2018;Yang and Zhang, 2018;Moore et al, 2018). Even in cases of lower resolution observations, mini-filament reformation and eruption has been postulated as the origin of a series of blow-out jets and related events (Chandra et al, 2017).…”