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Register a new userMeasurements of Coronal and Chromospheric Magnetic Fields using Polarization Observations by the Nobeyama Radioheliograph
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Coronal and chromospheric magnetic fields are derived from polarization and spectral observations of the thermal free-free emission using the Nobeyama Radioheliograph (NoRH). In magnetized plasma, the ordinary and extraordinary modes of free-free emission have different optical depths. This creates a circularly polarized component in an atmosphere with a temperature gradient. We observed an active region on April 13, 2012 to derive its coronal and chromospheric magnetic fields. The observed degree of circular polarization was between 0.5 % and 1.7 %. The radio circular polarization images were compared with ultraviolet images observed by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly and the photospheric magnetic field observed by the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager, both on board the Solar Dynamic Observatory. At the edge of the active region, the radio circular polarization was emitted mainly from coronal loops, and the coronal magnetic field was derived to be about 70 G. At the center of the active region, the chromospheric and coronal components cannot be separated. The derived magnetic field is about 20 % to 50 % of the corresponding photospheric magnetic field, which is an emission-measure-weighted average of the coronal and chromospheric magnetic fields.
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We investigate the upper chromosphere and the transition region of the sunspot umbra using the radio brightness temperature at 34 GHz (corresponding to 8.8-mm observations) as observed by the Nobeyama Radioheliograph (NoRH). Radio free-free emission in the longer millimeter range is generated around the transition region, and its brightness temperature yields the regions temperature and density distribution. We use the NoRH data at 34 GHz by applying the Steer-CLEAN image synthesis. These data and the analysis method enable us to investigate the chromospheric structures in the longer millimeter range with high spatial resolution and sufficient visibilities. We also perform simultaneous observations of one sunspot using the NoRH and the Nobeyama 45-m telescope operating at 115 GHz. We determine that 115-GHz emission mainly originates from the lower chromosphere while 34-GHz emission mainly originates from the upper chromosphere and transition region. These observational results are consistent with the radio emission characteristics estimated from the current atmospheric models of the chromosphere. On the other hand, the observed brightness temperature of the umbral region is almost the same as that of the quiet region. This result is inconsistent with the current sunspot models, which predict a considerably higher brightness temperature of the sunspot umbra at 34 GHz. This inconsistency suggests that the temperature of the region at which the 34 GHz radio emission becomes optically thick should be lower than that predicted by the models.
Adopting the thermal free-free emission mechanism, the coronal and chromospheric magnetic fields are derived from the polarization and spectral observations with the Nobeyama Radioheliograph at 1.76 cm. The solar active regions (AR) located near the disk center observed on January 8, 2015 (AR 12257) and December 4, 2016 (AR 12615) are used for the estimate of the chromospheric and coronal magnetic fields with the microwave radio observations. We compare solar radio maps of active regions for both intensity and circularly polarized component with the optical maps from observations with the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager and the chromosphere and corona transition region images obtained with the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly instrument, on board the Solar Dynamic Observatory. We notice from the comparison between radio maps of both AR that the circular polarization degree in the AR 12257 is about 2 percent, but the AR 12615 has a higher existent value by 3 percent. Radio observations provide us for direct measurements of magnetic fields in the chromospheric and coronal layers. We estimate the coronal magnetic fields using the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly observations by adopting magnetic loops in the corona over some patches with weak photospheric magnetic fields. The coronal magnetic field derived from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly data was from 90 to 240 Gauss. We also study the coronal magnetic fields based on the structure of the extrapolated field, where the result of the magnetic fields was in the range from 35 to 145 Gauss, showing that the difference in the coronal magnetic fields between both results is attributed to the assumption of the force-free approximation.
The Sun is replete with magnetic fields, with sunspots, pores and plage regions being their most prominent representatives on the solar surface. But even far away from these active regions, magnetic fields are ubiquitous. To a large extent, their importance for the thermodynamics in the solar photosphere is determined by the total magnetic flux. Whereas in low-flux quiet Sun regions, magnetic structures are shuffled around by the motion of granules, the high-flux areas like sunspots or pores effectively suppress convection, leading to a temperature decrease of up to 3000 K. The importance of magnetic fields to the conditions in higher atmospheric layers, the chromosphere and corona, is indisputable. Magnetic fields in both active and quiet regions are the main coupling agent between the outer layers of the solar atmosphere, and are therefore not only involved in the structuring of these layers, but also for the transport of energy from the solar surface through the corona to the interplanetary space. Consequently, inference of magnetic fields in the photosphere, and especially in the chromosphere, is crucial to deepen our understanding not only for solar phenomena such as chromospheric and coronal heating, flares or coronal mass ejections, but also for fundamental physical topics like dynamo theory or atomic physics. In this review, we present an overview of significant advances during the last decades in measurement techniques, analysis methods, and the availability of observatories, together with some selected results. We discuss the problems of determining magnetic fields at smallest spatial scales, connected with increasing demands on polarimetric sensitivity and temporal resolution, and highlight some promising future developments for their solution.
We report observations of white-light ejecta in the low corona, for two X-class flares on the 2013 May 13, using data from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) of the Solar Dynamics Observatory. At least two distinct kinds of sources appeared (chromospheric and coronal), in the early and later phases of flare development, in addition to the white-light footpoint sources commonly observed in the lower atmosphere. The gradual emissions have a clear identification with the classical loop-prominence system, but are brighter than expected and possibly seen here in the continuum rather than line emission. We find the HMI flux exceeds the radio/X-ray interpolation of the bremsstrahlung produced in the flare soft X-ray sources by at least one order of magnitude. This implies the participation of cooler sources that can produce free-bound continua and possibly line emission detectable by HMI. One of the early sources dynamically resembles coronal rain, appearing at a maximum apparent height and moving toward the photosphere at an apparent constant projected speed of 134 $pm$ 8 $mathrm{km s^{-1}}$. Not much literature exists on the detection of optical continuum sources above the limb of the Sun by non-coronagraphic instruments, and these observations have potential implications for our basic understanding of flare development, since visible observations can in principle provide high spatial and temporal resolution.
We found systematic microwave source motions along a flare-arcade using Nobeyama Radioheliograph (NoRH) 17 GHz images. The motions were associated with a X-class disk flare which occurred on 15th February 2011. For this study, we also used EUV images from Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) and magnetograms from Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) onboard Solar Dynamics Observatory, and multi-channel microwave data from Nobeyama Radiopolarimeters (NoRP) and Korean Solar Radio Burst Locator (KSRBL). We traced centroids of the microwave source observed by NoRH 17 GHz during the flare and found two episodes of the motion with several facts: 1) The microwave source moved systematically along the flare-arcade, which was observed by the AIA 94 A in a direction parallel to the neutral line. 2) The period of each episode was 5 min and 14 min, respectively. 3) Estimated parallel speed was 34 km/s for the first episode and 22 km/s for the second episode. The spectral slope of microwave flux above 10 GHz obtained by NoRP and KSRBL was negative for both episodes, and for the last phase of the second episodes, it was flat with the flux of 150 sfu. The negative spectrum and the flat with high flux indicate that the gyrosynchrotron emission from accelerated electrons was dominant during the source motions. The sequential images from the AIA 304 A and 94 A channels revealed that there were successive plasma eruptions and each eruption was initiated just before the start time of the microwave sources motion. Based on the results, we suggest that the microwave source motion manifests the displacement of the particle acceleration site caused by plasma eruptions.
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