Unveiling the Initiation Route of Coronal Mass Ejections through Their Slow Rise Phase

Chen Xing (1, 2) , Guillaume Aulanier (3, 1) , Xin Cheng (2) , Chun Xia (4) , Mingde Ding (2)

1 LPP - Laboratoire de Physique des Plasmas
2 NJU - Nanjing University
3 Observatoire de Paris
4 Yunnan University

Understanding the early evolution of coronal mass ejections (CMEs), in particular their initiation, is the key to forecasting solar eruptions and induced disastrous space weather. Although many initiation mechanisms have been proposed, a full understand- ing of CME initiation, which is identified as a slow rise of CME progenitors in kine- matics before the impulsive acceleration, remains elusive. Here, with a state-of-the-art thermal-magnetohydrodynamics simulation, we determine a complete CME initiation route in which multiple mainstream mechanisms occur in sequence yet are tightly cou- pled. The slow rise is first triggered and driven by the developing hyperbolic flux tube (HFT) reconnection. Subsequently, the slow rise continues as driven by the coupling of the HFT reconnection and the early development of torus instability. The end of the slow rise, i.e., the onset of the impulsive acceleration, is induced by the start of the fast magnetic reconnection coupled with the torus instability. These results unveil that the CME initiation is a complicated process involving multiple physical mechanisms, thus being hardly resolved by a single initiation mechanism.

Mots clés: corona; oronal mass ejections (CMEs); flares

Domaines: Planète et Univers [physics]

Chen Xing, Guillaume Aulanier, Xin Cheng, Chun Xia, Mingde Ding. Unveiling the Initiation Route of Coronal Mass Ejections through Their Slow Rise Phase. The Astrophysical Journal, 2024, ⟨10.3847/1538-4357/ad2ea9⟩. ⟨hal-04566052⟩