Solar eruptive events

Holman, Gordon D., Solar eruptive events, Physics Today, 65, 56 (2012) (ADS)

The cartoon

(click on the image for a larger version)

This cartoon vividly captures the over-described CSHKP flare scenario; the a-c portions ask for a leap of faith between the 2D reconnection geometry and the arcade formation, asking us to believe somehow that a single "field line" can somehow have found exactly the right parter to produce a toaster-wire fluxrope configuration. This ignores the simple conclusion from Maxwell's equations that a powerful horizontal current would need to form in the absence of any link to the photosphere, and without an electrical potential to drive it. So the Archivist thinks that this cartoon is sterile as regards its predictive capability, as much as it may look like the observations.

   Technically one has to admire the nice colors (see also the Hao or Gosling cartoons, but as is often the case following the Shibata cartoon, this version perpetuates a seemingly incorrect perspective effect: the red loop footpoints appear foreshortened, whereas the yellow ones do not. This has resulted from a too-hasty conversion from 2D, it seems.

Date: 2019 November 11