Formation and Eruption of a Mini-sigmoid Originating in Coronal Hole

TL;DR

This study investigates the formation and eruption of a mini-sigmoid in a coronal hole, revealing similarities to larger sigmoids but with distinct magnetic properties and influence from open magnetic fields.

Contribution

It provides detailed analysis and magnetic field modeling of a mini-sigmoid in a coronal hole, highlighting its formation, thermal properties, and eruption mechanisms, which are comparable to larger sigmoids.

Findings

Mini-sigmoid forms via flux cancellation and shearing.

Temperature of sigmoidal loops is about 2 million K.

Sigmoid's twist is around 0.8, less than active-region sigmoids.

Abstract

In this paper, we study in detail the evolution of a mini-sigmiod originating in a cross-equatorial coronal hole, where the magnetic field is mostly open and seriously distinct from the closed background field above active-region sigmoids. The source region first appeared as a bipole, which subsequently experienced a rapid emergence followed by a long-term decay. Correspondingly, the coronal structure initially appeared as arc-like loops, then gradually sheared and transformed into continuously sigmoidal loops, mainly owing to flux cancellation near the polarity inversion line. The temperature of J-shaped and sigmoidal loops is estimated to be about $2.0\times10^{6}$ K, greater than that of the background coronal hole. Using the flux-rope insertion method, we further reconstruct the nonlinear force-free fields that well reproduces the transformation of the potential field into a sigmoidal field. The fact that the sheared and sigmoidal loops are mainly concentrated at around the high-Q region implies that the reconnection most likely takes place there to form the sigmoidal field and heat the plasma. Moreover, the twist of sigmoidal field lines is estimated to be around 0.8, less than the values derived for the sigmoids from active regions. However, the sigmoidal flux may quickly enter an unstable regime at the very low corona ($<10\ Mm$) due to the open background field. The results suggest that the mini-sigmoid, at least the one in our study, has the same formation and eruption process as the large-scale one, but is significantly influenced by the overlying flux.