Published online by Cambridge University Press: 14 August 2015
It has been a customary assumption that any force-free magnetic field represents an equilibrium field in the solar atmosphere under the extreme condition 8πp/B2 ≪ 1. An example of a force-free magnetic field is presented for which this assumption fails in the sense that no equilibrium is possible for the magnetic field if imposed with an arbitrary ambient pressure, however weak the pressure is. A simple mechanism is proposed for the onset of eruption in the course of otherwise quasi-static evolution of magnetic fields in the solar atmosphere.