The aim of this work is to determine the multi-thermal characteristics and
plasma energetics of an eruptive plasmoid and occulted flare observed by Solar
Dynamics Observatory/Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (SDO/AIA). We study an event
from 03-Nov-2010 (peaking at 12:20UT in GOES soft X-rays) of a coronal mass
ejection and occulted flare which demonstrates the morphology of a classic
erupting flux rope. The high spatial, and time resolution, and six coronal
channels, of the SDO/AIA images allows the dynamics of the multi-thermal
emission during the initial phases of eruption to be studied in detail. The
Differential Emission Measure (DEM) is calculated, using an optimised version
of a regularized inversion method (Hannah & Kontar 2012), for each pixel across
the six channels at different times, resulting in emission measure maps and
movies in a variety of temperature ranges. We find that the core of the
erupting plasmoid is hot (8-11, 11-14MK) with a similarly hot filamentary
"stem" structure connecting it to the lower atmosphere, which could be
interpreted as the current sheet in the flux rope model, though is wider than
these models suggest. The velocity of the leading edge of the eruption is
597-664 km s−1 in the temperature range ≥3-4MK and between 1029-1246
km s−1 for ≤2-3MK. We estimate the density (in 11-14 MK) of the
erupting core and stem during the impulsive phase to be about 3×109
cm−3, 6×109 cm−3, 9×108 cm−3 in the plasmoid
core, stem and surrounding envelope of material. This gives thermal energy
estimates of 5×1029 erg, 1×1029 erg and 2×1030
erg. The kinetic energy for the core and envelope is slightly smaller. The
thermal energy of the core and current sheet grows during the eruption,
suggesting continuous influx of energy presumably via reconnection.Comment: Submitted to A&A: in revisio