Flux Rope Breaking and Formation of a Rotating Blowout Jet

TL;DR

This study investigates the eruption of a flux rope and its transformation into a rotating blowout jet within a fan-spine magnetic configuration, revealing flux rope breaking, reconnection, and jet dynamics through multi-wavelength observations.

Contribution

It provides detailed observational evidence of flux rope breaking and the formation of a rotating blowout jet, linking magnetic reconnection and jet kinematics in a fan-spine structure.

Findings

Flux rope broke in the middle during eruption.

The jet exhibited untwisting motion with speeds of 60-120 km/s.

The jet evolved into a narrow coronal mass ejection at 9 Rsun.

Abstract

We analyzed a small flux rope eruption converted into a helical blowout jet in a fan-spine configuration using multi-wavelength observations taken by SDO, which occurred near the limb on 2016 January 9. In our study, first, we estimated the fan-spine magnetic configuration with the potential field calculation and found a sinistral small filament inside it. The filament along with the flux rope erupted upward and interacted with the surrounding fan- spine magnetic configuration, where the flux rope breaks in the middle section. We observed compact brightening, flare ribbons and post-flare loops underneath the erupting filament. The northern section of the flux rope reconnected with the surrounding positive polarity, while the southern section straightened. Next, we observed the untwisting motion of the southern leg, which was transformed into a rotating helical blowout jet. The sign of the helicity of the mini-filament matches the one of the rotating jet. This is consistent with the jet models presented by Adams et al. (2014) and Sterling et al. (2015). We focused on the fine thread structure of the rotating jet and traced three blobs with the speed of 60-120 km/s, while the radial speed of the jet is approx 400 km/s. The untwisting motion of the jet accelerated plasma upward along the collimated outer spine field lines, and it finally evolved into a narrow coronal mass ejection at the height of approx 9 Rsun . On the basis of the detailed analysis, we discussed clear evidence of the scenario of the breaking of the flux rope and the formation of the helical blowout jet in the fan-spine magnetic configuration.