Upward and Downward Catastrophes of Coronal Magnetic Flux Ropes in Quadrupolar Magnetic Fields

Abstract

Coronal magnetic flux ropes are closely related to large-scale solar activities. Using a 2.5-dimensional time-dependent ideal magnetohydrodynamic model in Cartesian coordinates, we carry out numerical simulations to investigate the evolution of a magnetic system consisting of a flux rope embedded in a fully closed quadrupolar magnetic field with different photospheric flux distributions. It is found that when the photospheric flux is not concentrated too much toward the polarity inversion line and the constraint exerted by the background field is not too weak, the equilibrium states of the system are divided into two branches: the rope sticks to the photosphere for the lower branch and levitates in the corona for the upper branch. These two branches are connected by an upward catastrophe (from the lower branch to the upper) and a downward catastrophe (from the upper branch to the lower). Our simulations reveal that there exist both upward and downward catastrophes in quadrupolar fields, which may be either force-free or non-force-free. The existence and the properties of these two catastrophes are influenced by the photospheric flux distribution, and a downward catastrophe is always paired with an upward catastrophe. Comparing the decay indices in catastrophic and noncatastrophic cases, we infer that torus unstable may be a necessary but not sufficient condition for a catastrophic system.