Issue |
A&A
Volume 549, January 2013
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | A105 | |
Number of page(s) | 5 | |
Section | The Sun | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/201220503 | |
Published online | 07 January 2013 |
A solar tornado triggered by flares?⋆
1
Max-Planck Institut für Sonnensystemforschung,
Max-Planck-Str. 2,
37191
Katlenburg-Lindau,
Germany
e-mail: panesar@mps.mpg.de
2
Institut für Astrophysik, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen,
Friedrich-Hund-Platz
1, 37077
Göttingen,
Germany
3
High Altitude Observatory, National Center for Atmospheric Research, PO Box
3000, Boulder,
CO
80307,
USA
Received:
5
October
2012
Accepted:
24
November
2012
Context. Solar tornados are dynamical, conspicuously helical magnetic structures that are mainly observed as a prominence activity.
Aims. We investigate and propose a triggering mechanism for the solar tornado observed in a prominence cavity by SDO/AIA on September 25, 2011.
Methods. High-cadence EUV images from the SDO/AIA and the Ahead spacecraft of STEREO/EUVI are used to correlate three flares in the neighbouring active-region (NOAA 11303) and their EUV waves with the dynamical developments of the tornado. The timings of the flares and EUV waves observed on-disk in 195 Å are analysed in relation to the tornado activities observed at the limb in 171 Å.
Results. Each of the three flares and its related EUV wave occurred within ten hours of the onset of the tornado. They have an observed causal relationship with the commencement of activity in the prominence where the tornado develops. Tornado-like rotations along the side of the prominence start after the second flare. The prominence cavity expands with the accelerating tornado motion after the third flare.
Conclusions. Flares in the neighbouring active region may have affected the cavity prominence system and triggered the solar tornado. A plausible mechanism is that the active-region coronal field contracted by the “Hudson effect” through the loss of magnetic energy as flares. Subsequently, the cavity expanded by its magnetic pressure to fill the surrounding low corona. We suggest that the tornado is the dynamical response of the helical prominence field to the cavity expansion.
Key words: Sun: chromosphere / Sun: filaments, prominences / Sun: flares
Movies are available in electronic form at http://www.aanda.org
© ESO, 2013
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