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Register a new userFrequently Occurring Reconnection Jets from Sunspot Light Bridges
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Solid evidence of magnetic reconnection is rarely reported within sunspots, the darkest regions with the strongest magnetic fields and lowest temperatures in the solar atmosphere. Using the worlds largest solar telescope, the 1.6-meter Goode Solar Telescope, we detect prevalent reconnection through frequently occurring fine-scale jets in the H${alpha}$ line wings at light bridges, the bright lanes that may divide the dark sunspot core into multiple parts. Many jets have an inverted Y-shape, shown by models to be typical of reconnection in a unipolar field environment. Simultaneous spectral imaging data from the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph show that the reconnection drives bidirectional flows up to 200~km~s$^{-1}$, and that the weakly ionized plasma is heated by at least an order of magnitude up to $sim$80,000 K. Such highly dynamic reconnection jets and efficient heating should be properly accounted for in future modeling efforts of sunspots. Our observations also reveal that the surge-like activity previously reported above light bridges in some chromospheric passbands such as the H${alpha}$ core has two components: the ever-present short surges likely to be related to the upward leakage of magnetoacoustic waves from the photosphere, and the occasionally occurring long and fast surges that are obviously caused by the intermittent reconnection jets.
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We present unprecedented high-resolution TiO images and Fe I 1565 nm spectropolarimetric data of two light bridges taken by the 1.6-m Goode Solar Telescope at Big Bear Solar Observatory. In the first light bridge (LB1), we find striking knot-like dark structures within the central dark lane. Many dark knots show migration away from the penumbra along the light bridge. The sizes, intensity depressions and apparent speeds of their proper motion along the light bridges of 33 dark knots identified from the TiO images are mainly in the ranges of 80$sim$200~km, 30%$sim$50%, and 0.3$sim$1.2~km~s$^{-1}$, respectively. In the second light bridge (LB2), a faint central dark lane and striking transverse intergranular lanes were observed. These intergranular lanes have sizes and intensity depressions comparable to those of the dark knots in LB1, and also migrate away from the penumbra at similar speeds. Our observations reveal that LB2 is made up of a chain of evolving convection cells, as indicated by patches of blue shift surrounded by narrow lanes of red shift. The central dark lane generally corresponds to blueshifts, supporting the previous suggestion of central dark lanes being the top parts of convection upflows. In contrast, the intergranular lanes are associated with redshifts and located at two sides of each convection cell. The magnetic fields are stronger in intergranular lanes than in the central dark lane. These results suggest that these intergranular lanes are manifestations of convergent convective downflows in the light bridge. We also provide evidence that the dark knots observed in LB1 may have a similar origin.
Penumbral filaments and light bridges are prominent structures inside sunspots and are important for understanding the nature of sunspot magnetic fields and magneto-convection underneath. We investigate an interesting event where several penumbral filaments intruded into a sunspot light bridge for more insights into magnetic fields of the sunspot penumbral filament and light bridge, as well as their interaction. The emission, kinematic, and magnetic topology characteristics of the penumbral filaments intruding into the light bridge and the resultant jets are studied. At the west part of the light bridge, the intruding penumbral filaments penetrated into the umbrae on both sides of the light bridge, and two groups of jets were also detected. The jets shared the same projected morphology with the intruding filaments and were accompanied by intermittent footpoint brightenings. Simultaneous spectral imaging observations provide convincing evidences for the presences of magnetic reconnection related heating and bidirectional flows near the jet bases and contribute to measuring vector velocities of the jets. Additionally, nonlinear force-free field extrapolation results reveal strong and highly inclined magnetic fields along the intruding penumbral filaments, consistent well with the results deduced from the vector velocities of the jets. Therefore, we propose that the jets could be caused by magnetic reconnections between emerging fields within the light bridge and the nearly horizontal fields of intruding filaments. They were then ejected outward along the stronger filaments fields. Our study indicates that magnetic reconnection could occur between the penumbral filament fields and emerging fields within light bridge and produce jets along the stronger filament fields. These results further complement the study of magnetic reconnection and dynamic activities within the sunspot.
One important feature of sunspots is the presence of light bridges. These structures are elongated and bright (as compared to the umbra) features that seem to be related to the formation and evolution of sunspots. In this work, we studied the long-term evolution and the stratification of different atmospheric parameters of three light bridges formed in the same host sunspot by different mechanisms. To accomplish this, we used data taken with the GREGOR Infrared Spectrograph installed at the GREGOR telescope. These data were inverted to infer the physical parameters of the atmosphere where the observed spectral profiles were formed of the three light bridges. We find that, in general, the behaviour of the three light bridges is typical of this kind of structure with the magnetic field strength, inclination, and temperature values between the values at the umbra and the penumbra. We also find that they are of a significantly non-magnetic character (particularly at the axis of the light bridges) as it is deduced from the filling factor. In addition, within the common behaviour of the physical properties of light bridges, we observe that each one exhibits a particular behaviour. Another interesting result is that the light bridge cools down, the magnetic field decreases, and the magnetic field lines get more inclined higher in the atmosphere. Finally, we studied the magnetic and non-magnetic line-of-sight velocities of the light bridges. The former shows that the magnetic component is at rest and, interestingly, its variation with optical depth shows a bi-modal behaviour. For the line-of-sight velocity of the non-magnetic component, we see that the core of the light bridge is at rest or with shallow upflows and clear downflows sinking through the edges.
Rapid and luminous flares of non-thermal radiation observed in blazars require an efficient mechanism of energy dissipation and particle acceleration in relativistic active galactic nuclei (AGN) jets. Particle acceleration in relativistic magnetic reconnection is being actively studied by kinetic numerical simulations. Relativistic reconnection produces hard power-law electron energy distributions N(gamma) = N_0 gamma^(-p) exp(-gamma/gamma_max) with index p -> 1 and exponential cut-off Lorentz factor gamma_max ~ sigma in the limit of magnetization sigma = B^2/(4 pi w) >> 1 (where w is the relativistic enthalpy density). Reconnection in electron-proton plasma can additionally boost gamma_max by the mass ratio m_p/m_e. Hence, in order to accelerate particles to gamma_max ~ 10^6 in the case of BL Lacs, reconnection should proceed in plasma of very high magnetization sigma_max >~ 10^3. On the other hand, moderate mean jet magnetization values are required for magnetic bulk acceleration of relativistic jets, sigma_mean ~ Gamma_j <~ 20 (where Gamma_j is the jet bulk Lorentz factor). I propose that the systematic dependence of gamma_max on blazar luminosity class -- the blazar sequence -- may result from a systematic trend in sigma_max due to homogeneous loading of leptons by pair creation regulated by the energy density of high-energy external radiation fields. At the same time, relativistic AGN jets should be highly inhomogeneous due to filamentary loading of protons, which should determine the value of sigma_mean roughly independently of the blazar class.
Traditionally, the strongest magnetic fields on the Sun have been measured in sunspot umbrae. More recently, however, much stronger fields have been measured at the ends of penumbral filaments carrying the Evershed and counter-Evershed flows. Superstrong fields have also been reported within a light bridge separating two umbrae of opposite polarities. We aim to accurately determine the strengths of the strongest fields in a light bridge using an advanced inversion technique and to investigate their detailed structure. We analyze observations from the spectropolarimeter on board the Hinode spacecraft of the active region AR 11967. The thermodynamic and magnetic configurations are obtained by inverting the Stokes profiles using an inversion scheme that allows multiple height nodes. Both the traditional 1D inversion technique and the so-called 2D coupled
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