Spectro-Polarimetric Imaging Reveals Helical Magnetic Fields in Solar Prominence Feet

Martínez González, M. J.; Manso Sainz, R.; Asensio Ramos, A.; Beck, C.; de la Cruz Rodríguez, J.; Díaz, A. J.
Bibliographical reference

The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 802, Issue 1, article id. 3, 9 pp. (2015).

Advertised on:
3
2015
Number of authors
6
IAC number of authors
5
Citations
32
Refereed citations
28
Description
Solar prominences are clouds of cool plasma levitating above the solar surface and insulated from the million-degree corona by magnetic fields. They form in regions of complex magnetic topology, characterized by non-potential fields, which can evolve abruptly, disintegrating the prominence and ejecting magnetized material into the heliosphere. However, their physics is not yet fully understood because mapping such complex magnetic configurations and their evolution is extremely challenging, and must often be guessed by proxy from photometric observations. Using state-of-the-art spectro-polarimetric data, we reconstruct the structure of the magnetic field in a prominence. We find that prominence feet harbor helical magnetic fields connecting the prominence to the solar surface below.
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