Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) erupt and expand in a magnetically structured
solar corona. Various indirect observational pieces of evidence have shown that
the magnetic field of CMEs reconnects with surrounding magnetic fields,
forming, e.g., dimming regions distant from the CME source regions. Analyzing
Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) observations of the eruption from AR 11226 on
2011 June 7, we present the first direct evidence of coronal magnetic
reconnection between the fields of two adjacent ARs during a CME. The
observations are presented jointly with a data-constrained numerical
simulation, demonstrating the formation/intensification of current sheets along
a hyperbolic flux tube (HFT) at the interface between the CME and the
neighbouring AR 11227. Reconnection resulted in the formation of new magnetic
connections between the erupting magnetic structure from AR 11226 and the
neighboring active region AR 11227 about 200 Mm from the eruption site. The
onset of reconnection first becomes apparent in the SDO/AIA images when
filament plasma, originally contained within the erupting flux rope, is
re-directed towards remote areas in AR 11227, tracing the change of large-scale
magnetic connectivity. The location of the coronal reconnection region becomes
bright and directly observable at SDO/AIA wavelengths, owing to the presence of
down-flowing cool, dense (10^{10} cm^{-3}) filament plasma in its vicinity. The
high-density plasma around the reconnection region is heated to coronal
temperatures, presumably by slow-mode shocks and Coulomb collisions. These
results provide the first direct observational evidence that CMEs reconnect
with surrounding magnetic structures, leading to a large-scale re-configuration
of the coronal magnetic field.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figure
