Energy Release in the Solar Atmosphere from a Stream of Infalling Prominence Debris

Recent high-resolution and high-cadence extreme-ultraviolet (EUV) imaging has revealed a new phenomenon, impacting prominence debris, where prominence material from failed or partial eruptions can impact the lower atmosphere, releasing energy. We report a clear example of energy release and EUV brightening due to infalling prominence debris that occurred on 2011 September 7–8. The initial eruption of material was associated with an X1.8-class flare from AR 11283, occurring at 22:30 UT on 2011 September 7. Subsequently, a semicontinuous stream of this material returned to the solar surface with a velocity v > 150 km s⁻¹, impacting a region remote from the original active region between 00:20 and 00:40 UT on 2011 September 8. Using the Solar Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly, the differential emission measure of the plasma was estimated throughout this brightening event. We found that the radiated energy of the impacted plasma was $L_{rad}\sim {10}^{27}$ erg, while the thermal energy peaked at ∼10²⁸ erg. From this we were able to determine the mass content of the debris to be in the range $2\times {10}^{14}<m<2\times {10}^{15}$ g. Given typical prominence masses, the likely debris mass is toward the lower end of this range. This clear example of a prominence debris event shows that significant energy release takes place during these events and that such impacts may be used as a novel diagnostic tool for investigating prominence material properties.