Determining the dynamics and magnetic fields in He I 10830 \r{A} during a solar filament eruption

TL;DR

This study analyzes the magnetic and dynamic properties of a solar filament eruption using spectropolarimetric data, revealing high velocities, dominant horizontal magnetic fields, and stable magnetic field orientations during the eruption's early phase.

Contribution

It provides detailed measurements of velocities and magnetic field components in an erupting filament using advanced spectropolarimetric techniques and machine learning classification.

Findings

Upward velocities reach ~73 km/s.

Horizontal magnetic fields dominate with 173-254 G.

Magnetic field orientation remains stable during early eruption.

Abstract

We investigate the dynamics and magnetic properties of the plasma, such as line-of-sight velocity (LOS), optical depth, vertical and horizontal magnetic fields, belonging to an erupted solar filament. The filament eruption was observed with the GREGOR Infrared Spectrograph (GRIS) at the 1.5-meter GREGOR telescope on 2016 July 3. Three consecutive full-Stokes slit-spectropolarimetric scans in the He I 10830 \r{A} spectral range were acquired. The Stokes I profiles were classified using the machine learning k-means algorithm and then inverted with different initial conditions using the HAZEL code. The erupting-filament material presents the following physical conditions: (1) ubiquitous upward motions with peak LOS velocities of ~73 km/s; (2) predominant large horizontal components of the magnetic field, on average, in the range of 173-254 G, whereas the vertical components of the fields are much lower, on average between 39-58 G; (3) optical depths in the range of 0.7-1.1. The average azimuth orientation of the field lines between two consecutive raster scans (<2.5 minutes) remained constant. The analyzed filament eruption belonged to the fast rising phase, with total velocities of about 124 km/s. The orientation of the magnetic field lines does not change from one raster scan to the other, indicating that the untwisting phase has not started yet. The untwisting seems to start about 15 min after the beginning of the filament eruption.