A multiple spacecraft detection of the 2 April 2022 M-class flare and filament eruption during the first close Solar Orbiter perihelion

TL;DR

This study presents a multi-instrument, multi-view analysis of the 2022 solar flare and filament eruption, demonstrating the capabilities of coordinated Solar Orbiter observations and providing new insights into the magnetic and thermal structures involved.

Contribution

It offers the first spectroscopic coverage of a filament eruption from multiple angles, enhancing understanding of flare dynamics and magnetic configurations.

Findings

Parasitic polarity triggers flux rope eruption.

Spectroscopic data reveal multi-thermal structures before and during flare.

Magnetic activity influences flare ribbon and loop evolution.

Abstract

The Solar Orbiter mission completed its first remote-sensing observation windows in the spring of 2022. On 2/4/2022, an M-class flare followed by a filament eruption was seen both by the instruments on board the mission and from several observatories in Earth's orbit. The complexity of the observed features is compared with the predictions given by the standard flare model in 3D. We use the observations from a multi-view dataset, which includes EUV imaging to spectroscopy and magnetic field measurements. These data come from IRIS, SDO, Hinode, as well as several instruments on Solar Orbiter. Information given by SDO/HMI and Solar Orbiter PHI/HRT shows that a parasitic polarity emerging underneath the filament is responsible for bringing the flux rope to an unstable state. As the flux rope erupts, Hinode/EIS captures blue-shifted emission in the transition region and coronal lines in the northern leg of the flux rope prior to the flare peak. Solar Orbiter SPICE captures the whole region, complementing the Doppler diagnostics of the filament eruption. Analyses of the formation and evolution of a complex set of flare ribbons and loops show that the parasitic emerging bipole plays an important role in the evolution of the flaring region. While the analysed data are overall consistent with the standard flare model, the present particular magnetic configuration shows that surrounding magnetic activity such as nearby emergence needs to be taken into account to fully understand the processes at work. This filament eruption is the first to be covered from different angles by spectroscopic instruments, and provides an unprecedented diagnostic of the multi-thermal structures present before and during the flare. This dataset of an eruptive event showcases the capabilities of coordinated observations with the Solar Orbiter mission.