Catastrophe of coronal magnetic flux ropes in fully open magnetic field

The catastrophe of coronal magnetic flux ropes is closely related to solar explosive phenomena, such as prominence eruptions, coronal mass ejections, and two-ribbon solar flares. Using a 2-dimensional, 3-component ideal MHD model in Cartesian coordinates, numerical simulations are carried out to investigate the equilibrium property of a coronal magnetic flux rope which is embedded in a fully open background magnetic field. The flux rope emerges from the photosphere and enters the corona with its axial and annular magnetic fluxes controlled by a single “emergence parameter”. For a flux rope that has entered the corona, we may change its axial and annular fluxes artificially and let the whole system reach a new equilibrium through numerical simulations. The results obtained show that when the emergence parameter, the axial flux, or the annular flux is smaller than a certain critical value, the flux rope is in equilibrium and adheres to the photosphere. On the other hand, if the critical value is exceeded, the flux rope loses equilibrium and erupts freely upward, namely, a catastrophe takes place. In contrast with the partly-opened background field, the catastrophic amplitude is infinite for the case of fully-opened background field