# Magnetic Flux Cancelation as the Origin of Solar Quiet Region Pre-Jet Minifilaments

## TL;DR

This study shows that magnetic flux cancelation in quiet solar regions causes the formation of pre-jet minifilaments and triggers their eruptions, leading to coronal jets, based on analysis of ten solar events.

## Contribution

It provides observational evidence linking flux cancelation to both minifilament formation and eruption in quiet solar regions, clarifying the origin of solar quiet region pre-jet minifilaments.

## Key findings

- Flux cancelation reduces magnetic flux by 10-40%.
- Minifilaments last from 1.5 hours to two days before erupting.
- Flux cancelation builds sheared magnetic fields that lead to eruptions.

## Abstract

We investigate the origin of ten solar quiet region pre-jet minifilaments, using EUV images from SDO/AIA and magnetograms from SDO/HMI. We recently found panesar16b that quiet region coronal jets are driven by minifilament eruptions, where those eruptions result from flux cancelation at the magnetic neutral line under the minifilament. Here, we study the longer-term origin of the pre-jet minifilaments themselves. We find that they result from flux cancelation between minority-polarity and majority-polarity flux patches. In each of ten pre-jet regions, we find that opposite-polarity patches of magnetic flux converge and cancel, with a flux reduction of 10--40% from before to after the minifilament appears. For our ten events, the minifilaments exist for periods ranging from 1.5 hr to two days before erupting to make a jet. Apparently, the flux cancelation builds highly sheared field that runs above and traces the neutral line, and the cool-transition-region-plasma minifilament forms in this field and is suspended in it. We infer that the convergence of the opposite-polarity patches results in reconnection in the low corona that builds a magnetic arcade enveloping the minifilament in its core, and that the continuing flux cancelation at the neutral line finally destabilizes the minifilament field so that it erupts and drives the production of a coronal jet. Thus our observations strongly support that quiet region magnetic flux cancelation results in both the formation of the pre-jet minifilament and its jet-driving eruption.