A MICROFILAMENT-ERUPTION MECHANISM FOR SOLAR SPICULES

Abstract

Recent investigations indicate that solar coronal jets result from eruptions of small-scale chromospheric filaments, called minifilaments; that is, the jets are produced by scaled-down versions of typical-sized filament eruptions. We consider whether solar spicules might in turn be scaled-down versions of coronal jets, being driven by eruptions of microfilaments. Assuming a microfilament's size is about a spicule's width (∼300 km), the estimated occurrence number plotted against the estimated size of erupting filaments, minifilaments, and microfilaments approximately follows a power-law distribution (based on counts of coronal mass ejections, coronal jets, and spicules), suggesting that many or most spicules could result from microfilament eruptions. Observed spicule-base Ca ii brightenings plausibly result from such microfilament eruptions. By analogy with coronal jets, microfilament eruptions might produce spicules with many of their observed characteristics, including smooth rise profiles, twisting motions, and EUV counterparts. The postulated microfilament eruptions are presumably eruptions of twisted-core micro-magnetic bipoles that are ∼1.″0 wide. These explosive bipoles might be built and destabilized by merging and cancelation of approximately a few to 100 G magnetic-flux elements of size ≲ 0 .″ 5 – 1 .″ 0 . If, however, spicules are relatively more numerous than indicated by our extrapolated distribution, then only a fraction of spicules might result from this proposed mechanism.