ON THE EVOLUTION OF FILAMENTS

A statistical large-scale study of filaments has revealed the existence of a functional dependence of the length of filaments (the angular distance between the ends of a filament, measured on a great circle on a sphere) on their inclination to lines of solar latitude. A cluster analysis method has been applied to the study of filament evolution and an evolutionary classification of filaments is proposed. The results depend on the differential velocity of filaments. Different types of evolution sequences were obtained, and the evolution of some particular filaments was specially analyzed.