Eruption of a Multiple-Turn Helical Magnetic Flux Tube in a Large Flare: Evidence for External and Internal Reconnection That Fits the Breakout Model of Solar Magnetic Eruptions

Nothing novel here, but inspired by a well-observed event (SOL2002-07-15) that will certainly interest all aficionados of the standard cartoon, or of its quadrupolar followers. Often such cartoons show show coronal field lines leaning suggestively towards each other in a decidedly non-intuitive manner. If we knew why they were doing that, we might have a better intuitive feel for why the reconnection might proceed. Pretty obviously large voids in the field should instead serve to suck flows away from the reconnection site, and so in 2D it sure looks like the reconnection process would quickly quench if left to its own devices. But, to be fair to the authors, the whole paper is about the 3D evolution, and they make a good case for "breakout" reconnection (see the Antiochos cartoon) occurring hand-in-hand with "tether-cutting" (Moore-LaBonte cartoon) reconnection.