Detection of Doppler velocity differences between ions and neutrals in an erupting prominence

Abstract

We performed a spectroscopic observation of an erupting prominence occurred on the solar limb on 2015 May 8th in He I 706.5 nm, O I 777.2 nm triplet and Ca II 849.8 nm lines to investigate differences in the Doppler velocity between ions and neutrals in a plasma strongly accelerated by the Lorentz force. We found that the ion-neutral velocity difference between Ca II and He I reached an order of 15 km s-1. On the other hand, the velocity difference between Ca II and O I was significantly smaller than that between Ca II and He I. This result can be interpreted as the formation of O I 777.2 nm lines in the erupting prominence is mainly contributed by the recombination from O II ions through charge transfer with hydrogen atoms, resulting in a behavior close to ions. According to an order estimate of the collisional friction among He I atoms and protons, the observed velocity difference between Ca II and He I implies the acceleration of the eruption reaching about 150 times of solar gravity. We propose a new method to evaluate the ionization degree of hydrogen from the velocity differences observed in Ca II, He I and O I lines.