On the sudden disappearances of solar filaments and their relationship with coronal mass ejections

Abstract

Sudden disappearances of prominences/filaments were identified from the Prairie View Solar Observatory H α imagesand Meudon Observatory spectroheliograms for the period January 1, 2000 to March 31, 2000. Three classes of disappearances were considered for the purpose of this study: eruptive, quasi-eruptive and vanishing filaments. The H α events were compared with CME data from LASCO C2 and C3 coronographs aboard SOHO. Our study shows that the eruptive events are strongly associated with CMEs while the other types are not.