Tracking the Evolution of Plasma Instabilities from the Prominence–Corona Transition Region into Interplanetary Space with Total Solar Eclipse and PSP/WISPR White Light Images

Abstract High-resolution total solar eclipse (TSE) white light (WL) images are the only observations at present to capture coronal structures over an uninterrupted field of view (FoV) of at least 10 solar radii ( R s ) starting from the solar limb. They were the first to report the presence of vortex rings originating within the prominence–corona transition region (PCTR). They have also captured coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and Kelvin–Helmholtz (KH) instabilities at different phases of their evolution. While the evolution of CMEs and KH waves is relatively well documented, little is known about the survivability of vortex rings beyond the FoV of TSE images. In this study, we use seven TSE images and noncontemporaneous WL images acquired by the Wide-field Imager for Parker Solar Probe (WISPR) to track the spatial evolution of vortex rings, KH waves, and CMEs. The size trend versus radial distance for vortex rings and KH waves is found to be shallower below 1.5 R s than beyond 3 R s , while the CMEs observed beyond 3 R s show a unique slope. The WISPR time series yields an average speed of 249.02 ± 25.3 km s −1 for the vortex rings beyond 3 R s , which when combined with their size yields a speed of 19.39 ± 3.20 km s −1 below 1 R s . These values are remarkably consistent with the acceleration profile of the slow solar wind over the same distance. This study provides strong empirical evidence that vortex rings, which originate at the PCTR with complex magnetic structures, do not dissipate as they expand away from the Sun with the solar wind.