A Unified Model of Solar Prominence Formation with Self-consistent Heating

Abstract Several models have been proposed to explain the formation of solar prominences, among which the evaporation–condensation model and the direct injection model are the most popular ones. In our previous study, we proposed to unify these two models: in both models, the formation of solar prominence is due to localized heating, presumably via magnetic reconnection. When the localized heating is located in the upper chromosphere, the cold in situ plasmas are heated to coronal temperatures, then evaporated to the corona, and finally condensate to form a prominence. Such a process is manifested as the evaporation–condensation model. When the localized heating is located in the lower chromosphere, the enhanced in situ pressure would push the cold plasmas in the upper chromosphere to the corona directly, which is manifested as the direct injection model. While the idea was confirmed by the one-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations, the heating was imposed ad hoc. In order to simulate the localized heating more self-consistently, we perform two-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations in this paper, where the localized heating is naturally realized by magnetic reconnection at different heights. The simulations further validate our model. In addition, mass circulation in the solar atmosphere is also briefly discussed.