Short Term Topological Changes of Coronal Holes Associated with Prominence Eruptions and Subsequent CMEs

TL;DR

This study investigates how short-term topological changes in coronal holes are linked to prominence eruptions and CMEs, revealing associations with boundary variations and bright point formations during the solar minimum years 2008-2009.

Contribution

It provides new evidence connecting coronal hole boundary changes with prominence eruptions and CMEs within a one-day window, emphasizing the role of local magnetic reconnections.

Findings

Coronal hole boundary changes are associated with nearby prominence eruptions.

Bright points near coronal holes correlate with boundary topological variations.

Short-term coronal hole changes often precede CMEs during solar minimum.

Abstract

We study the short--term topological changes of equatorial and polar coronal hole (CH) boundaries, such as a variation of their area and disintegration, associated to reconnection with nearby (within 15$^\circ$ distance) quiescent prominence magnetic fields leading to eruptions and subsequent Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs). The examples presented here correspond to the recent solar minimum years 2008 and 2009. We consider a temporal window of one day between the CH topological changes and the start and end times of prominence eruptions and onset of CMEs. To establish this association we took into account observational conditions related to the instability of prominence/filaments, the occurrence of a CME, as well as the subsequent evolution after the CME. We found an association between short--term local topological changes in CH boundaries and the formation/disappearance of bright points near them, as well as, between short--term topological changes within the whole CH and eruptions of nearby quiescent prominences followed by the appearance of one or more CMEs.