Three-dimensional Reconstruction of an Erupting Filament with Solar Dynamics Observatory and STEREO Observations

Abstract

On 2010 August 1, a global solar event was launched involving almost the entire Earth-facing side of the Sun. This event mainly consisted of a C3.2 flare, a polar crown filament eruption, and two Earth-directed coronal mass ejections. The observations from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and STEREO showed that all the activities were coupled together, suggesting a global character of the magnetic eruption. We reconstruct the three-dimensional geometry of the polar crown filament using observations from three different viewpoints (STEREO A, STEREO B, and SDO) for the first time. The filament undergoes two eruption processes. First, the main body of the filament rises up, while it also moves toward the low-latitude region with a change in inclination by ~48° and expands only in the altitudinal and latitudinal direction in the field of view of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly. We investigate the true velocities and accelerations of different locations along the filament and find that the highest location always has the largest acceleration during this eruption process. During the late phase of the first eruption, part of the filament material separates from the eastern leg. This material displays a projectile motion and moves toward the west at a constant velocity of 141.8 km s^-1. This may imply that the polar crown filament consists of at least two groups of magnetic systems.