High-Resolution Observation of Solar Prominence Plumes Induced by Enhanced Spicular Activity

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution H-alpha observations to investigate how enhanced spicular activity may generate plumes in solar prominences, shedding light on their formation and role in prominence mass supply.

Contribution

It provides new observational evidence linking enhanced spicular activity to the formation of prominence plumes via shock waves and magnetic instabilities.

Findings

Enhanced spicular activity correlates with plume formation.

Spicules jet at speeds exceeding typical chromospheric Alfvén speed.

Plumes have longer lifetimes and are driven by shock-induced instabilities.

Abstract

Solar prominences are the most prominent large-scale structures observed above the solar limb in emission in chromospheric lines but in absorption in coronal lines. At the bottom of prominences often appears a bubble, with plumes occasionally rising from the prominence-bubble interface. The plumes may potentially play an important role in the mass supply and thermodynamic evolution of prominences, but their nature and generation mechanism are elusive. Here we use the high-resolution H-alpha observations obtained by the New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST) to investigate a quiescent prominence with bubbles and plumes on 8 November 2022. Within an interval of about two hours, enhanced spicular activity disturb the prominence-bubble interface, producing bursts of small-scale plumes rising through the prominence. Characterized by clustered spicules jetting at higher speeds (sometimes exceeding the typical chromopsheric Alfven speed) and longer life-time (over 15 minutes), the enhanced spicular activity differs markedly from regular spicules. We hence conjecture that the enhanced spicular activity may drive shock waves, which trigger the magnetic Richtmyer-Meshkov instability at the prominence-bubble interface, leading to the formation of small-scale plumes. These observations provide evidence that the enhanced spicular activity plays a potentially important role in the dynamic evolution of bubbles and plumes, thereby participating in the mass supply of solar prominences.