Current Sheets in the Wake of an Eruption of Two Crossing Filaments

Abstract

Employing Solar Dynamic Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) multi-wavelength images, we study an eruption of two crossing filaments, and report for the first time the current sheets (CSs) connecting the lower flare ribbons and the upper erupting filaments. On 2014 July 8, two crossing filaments are observed in the NOAA active region 12113. The lower-lying filament rises first, and then meets the higher-lying one. Thereafter, both of them erupt together. The filament eruption draws the overlying magnetic field lines upward, leading to the approach of two legs, with opposite magnetic polarities, of the overlying field lines. Two sets of bright CSs form at the interface of these two legs, and magnetic reconnection takes place in the CSs producing the underneath flare ribbons and post-flare loops. Several bright plasmoids appear in the CSs, and propagate along the CSs bidirectionally. The CSs and plasmoids are observed in AIA multi-wavelength channels, indicating that both of them have been heated during the reconnection process, with hot and warm components. Employing the differential emission measure (EM) analysis, we find that both the temperature and EM of the CSs decrease from the flare arcades outward to the erupting filaments, and those of the plasmoids are significantly larger than the regions where no plasmoid is detected.