Coronal Mini-jets in an Activated Solar Tornado-like Prominence
Chen, Huadong, Jun Zhang, Bart De Pontieu, Suli Ma, Bernhard Kliem, and Eric Priest, Coronal Mini-jets in an Activated Solar Tornado-like Prominence, ApJ, 899, 19 (2020) (ADS)
(click on the image for a larger version)
A "tornado-like" prominence is one that appears to spin dizzily around a
vertical axis.
This may be a rare phenomenon, but like all prominences it reveals denser
(and except for the misnamed "loop prominence systems") and cooler material
than the surrounding medium.
Such structures have active filamentary threads, and with these
ingredients, why not have magnetic reconnection and
jets?
Indeed these do occur, and his paper finds a nice equipartition of
physical conditions consistent with a plasma gas pressure of 9 cgs and
a 16 G magnetic field.
It is interesting that this clearly-defined observational picture
has not been touted as yet another solution to the
Parker_1972ApJ...174..499P_PHY.html, possibly
because the situation is so infrequent.
A "tornado-like" prominence is one that appears to spin dizzily around a vertical axis. This may be a rare phenomenon, but like all prominences it reveals denser (and except for the misnamed "loop prominence systems") and cooler material than the surrounding medium. Such structures have active filamentary threads, and with these ingredients, why not have magnetic reconnection and jets? Indeed these do occur, and his paper finds a nice equipartition of physical conditions consistent with a plasma gas pressure of 9 cgs and a 16 G magnetic field. It is interesting that this clearly-defined observational picture has not been touted as yet another solution to the Parker_1972ApJ...174..499P_PHY.html, possibly because the situation is so infrequent.