FLUX EMERGENCE AND PROMINENCES - A NEW SCENARIO FOR 3-DIMENSIONAL FIELD GEOMETRY BASED ON OBSERVATIONS WITH THE ADVANCED STOKES POLARIMETER

This paper presents an interpretation of the evolution of the vector m agnetic field at the photosphere based on measurements of the advanced Stokes polarimeter, along with chromospheric Her from the Lockheed in strument operating on La Palma and X-ray images of the corona from Yoh koh. These measurements are consistent with the emergence of a nearly closed magnetic structure from the solar interior into the corona. The highly non-potential field topology inferred from the data suggests t hat strong field-aligned currents exist in the emergent magnetic struc ture as it buoyantly rises through the photosphere, Material trapped i n this closed structure is pulled upward to later condense into a prom inence. By analogy of this small active region evolution with the obse rved properties of large quiescent prominences, we speculate that this process might also be operative on a much larger scale. A 3-dimension al magnetostatic model is presented which has many topological feature s in common with the observations.