The Formation of Solar Prominences

Abstract

Recent progress in the understanding of the formation of quiescent solar prominences is summarized in this chapter, from both an observational and theoretical point of view. It is now well known that the mass of a quiescent prominence (seen in emission at the solar limb) or a filament (generally seen in absorption above the disk) is an appreciable part of the mass of the entire corona (roughly one tenth or more), which makes it difficult to form these structures by coronal condensation alone. Hence, possible mechanisms proposed recently to account for their formation are divided into two categories reviewed below, namely injection (of the chromospheric material into the corona by siphon flows) and condensation (of the coronal plasma itself).