Footpoints of Solar Filaments

Previous abstract Next abstract

Session 123 -- Solar Magnetic Field and Solar Variabilty
Oral presentation, Thursday, 12, 1995, 2:00pm - 3:30pm

[123.03] Footpoints of Solar Filaments

Sara F. Martin (SPRC and Helio Research)

Quiescent filaments are characterized in part by appendages or `barbs' along each side of the long axis or `spine' of the filament. Observations of the barbs at the limb and against the disk show that the barbs are paths along which mass flows from the spine to the chromosphere or vice-versa. The barbs and their chromospheric and photospheric footpoints were studied using H$\alpha$ filtergrams of a filament and corresponding photospheric line-of-sight magnetograms revealing enhanced network magnetic fields adjacent to the filament. These data were acquired from 13 thru 17 May 1992 at the Big Bear Solar Observatory. The footpoints of the major barbs were found to coincide with patches of minority polarity among the photospheric magnetic fields on each side of the filament. The minority polarity consists of small patches of magnetic field opposite in polarity to the areas of dominant unipolar network magnetic field on the same side of the filament. This finding is consistent with the magnetic field in the barbs being `inverse', that is, the reverse of the direction of the component of the magnetic field of the coronal arcade high above and perpendicular to the spine of the filament.

Thursday program listing