“…The convergence of opposite magnetic polarities towards PILs that leads to flux cancellation is driven by the dispersion of decaying AR magnetic fields, through convection and emergence of AR bipoles into pre-existing magnetic field, and also by the collision of bipoles during the emergence of multipolar ARs. The process of flux cancellation is often observed leading up to the formation of filament channels, filaments and CMEs (Martin et al, 1985(Martin et al, , 2012Martin, 1998;Gaizauskas et al, 2001;Gaizauskas, 2002;Wang and Muglach, 2007;Mackay et al, 2008Mackay et al, , 2014Chintzoglou et al, 2019), suggesting that flux cancellation plays an important role in the construction of pre-eruptive magnetic-field configurations. Small-scale brightenings and jets have been observed in the corona in connection with cancellation sites (e.g., Wang and Muglach, 2013).…”