Formation and Eruption of a Vortex-driven Magnetic Flux Rope in the Simulated Quiet Sun

Abstract Magnetic flux ropes (MFRs) are key structures for understanding flares and coronal mass ejections in active regions, but their characteristics in the quiet Sun remain poorly understood. With a radiative MHD simulation spanning from the upper convection zone to the corona, we analyze the formation and eruption of a supergranular-scale flux rope. We use a clustering method to group the closed field lines by their connectivity. The clusters are gathered further into eight persistent cluster assemblies (CAs) that correspond to a flux rope and ambient magnetic structures. A persistent counterclockwise vortex is maintained at the converging point of the supergranules, i.e., the positive footpoint of the flux rope. The vortex continuously injects helicity into a magnetic flux tube and wraps ambient magnetic structures around the central flux tube. On a timescale of one hour, the flux tube evolves to a strongly twisted flux rope and erupts. The eruption exhibits similar current sheet structures as inferred from the flux rope eruption in active regions; however, the mass ejection and heating are much weaker and give rise to very insignificant observable features. The synthetic EUV images show mostly dimming features caused by density rarefaction in the expanding flux rope. This work helps elucidate the dynamic and complex evolution of flux ropes formed in the quiet Sun and suggests that similar events in the real Sun may have been underestimated due to their stealth behavior.