Minifilament Eruptions as the Last Straw to Break the Equilibrium of a Giant Solar Filament
Year: 2025
Type: preprint
Abstract: Filament eruptions are magnetically driven violent explosions commonly observed on the Sun and late-type stars, sometimes leading to monster coronal mass ejections that directly affect the nearby planets' environments. More than a century of research on solar filaments suggests that the slow evolution of photospheric magnetic fields plays a decisive role in initiating filament eruptions, but the underlying mechanism remains unclear. Using high-resolution observations from the \textit{Chinese H$\alpha$ Solar Explorer}, the \textit{Solar Upper Transition Region Imager}, and the \textit{Solar Dynamics Observatory}, we present direct evidence that a giant solar filament eruption is triggered by a series of minifilament eruptions occurring beneath it. These minifilaments, which are homologous to the giant filament but on a smaller tempo-spatial scale, sequently form and erupt due to extremely weak mutual flux disappearance of opposite-polarity photospheric magnetic fields. Through multi-fold magnetic interactions, these erupting minifilaments act as the last straw to break the force balance of the overlying giant filament and initiate its ultimate eruption. The results unveil a possible novel pathway for small-scale magnetic activities near the stellar surface to initiate spectacular filament eruptions, and provide new insight into the magnetic coupling of filament eruptions across different tempo-spatial scales.
Source: arXiv (Cornell University)
Authors: Chen, Hechao, Tian, Hui, Zhang, Quanhao, Li, Chuan, Xia, Chun, Bai, Xianyong, Hou, Zhenyong, Ji, Kaifan, Deng, Yuanyong, Yang, Xiao, Hu, Ziyao
Language: English
Subfield: Astronomy and Astrophysics
Field: Physics and Astronomy
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6979279454
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