No Arabic abstract
Coronal Holes (CHs) have subdued intensity and net blueshifts when compared to Quiet Sun (QS) at coronal temperatures. At transition region temperatures, such differences are obtained for regions with identical photospheric absolute magnetic flux density ($vert$B$vert$). In this work, we use spectroscopic measurements of the car 1334~{AA} line from Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), formed at chromospheric temperatures, to investigate the intensity, Doppler shift, line width, skew, and excess kurtosis variations with $vert$B$vert$. We find the intensity, Doppler shift, and line widths to increase with $vert$B$vert$ for CHs and QS. The CHs show deficit in intensity and excess total widths over QS for regions with identical $vert$B$vert$. For pixels with only upflows, CHs show excess upflows over QS, while for pixels with only downflows, CHs show excess downflows over QS that cease to exist at $vert$B$vert$ $le$ 40. Finally, the spectral profiles are found to be more skewed and flatter than a Gaussian, with no difference between CH and QS. These results are important in understanding the heating of the atmosphere in CH and QS, including solar wind formation, and provide further constraints on the modeling of the solar atmosphere.
The study of the evolution of coronal holes (CHs) is especially important in the context of high-speed solar wind streams (HSS) emanating from them. Stream interaction regions may deliver large amount of energy into the Earths system, cause geomagnetic storms, and shape interplanetary space. By statistically analysing 16 long-living CHs observed by the SDO, we focus on coronal, morphological and underlying photospheric magnetic field characteristics as well as investigate the evolution of the associated HSSs. We use CATCH to extract and analyse CHs using observations taken by AIA and HMI. We derive changes in the CH properties and correlate them to the CH evolution. Further we analyse the properties of the HSS signatures near 1au from OMNI data by manually extracting the peak bulk velocity of the solar wind plasma. We find that the area evolution of CHs mostly shows a rough trend of growing to a maximum followed by a decay. No correlation of the area evolution to the evolution of the signed magnetic flux and signed magnetic flux density enclosed in the projected CH area was found. From this we conclude that the magnetic flux within the extracted CH boundaries is not the main cause for its area evolution. We derive CH area change rates (growth and decay) of 14.2 +/- 15.0 * 10^8 km^2/day showing a reasonable anti-correlation (cc =-0.48) to the solar activity, approximated by the sunspot number. The change rates of the signed mean magnetic flux density (27.3 +/- 32.2 mG/day) and the signed magnetic flux (30.3 +/- 31.5 * 10^18 Mx/day) were also found to be dependent on solar activity (cc =0.50 and cc =0.69 respectively) rather than on the individual CH evolutions. Further we find that the CH area-to-HSS peak velocity relation is valid for each CH over its evolution but revealing significant variations in the slopes of the regression lines.
We report the smallest coronal jets ever observed in the quiet Sun with recent high resolution observations from the High Resolution Telescopes (HRI-EUV and HRI-Ly{alpha}) of the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) onboard Solar Orbiter. In the HRI-EUV (174 {AA}) images, these microjets usually appear as nearly collimated structures with brightenings at their footpoints. Their average lifetime, projected speed, width, and maximum length are 4.6 min, 62 km s^(-1), 1.0 Mm, and 7.7 Mm, respectively. Inverted-Y shaped structures and moving blobs can be identified in some events. A subset of these events also reveal signatures in the HRI-Ly{alpha} (H I Ly{alpha} at 1216 {AA}) images and the extreme ultraviolet images taken by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory. Our differential emission measure analysis suggests a multi-thermal nature and an average density of ~1.4x10^9 cm^(-3) for these microjets. Their thermal and kinetic energies were estimated to be ~3.9x10^24 erg and ~2.9x10^23 erg, respectively, which are of the same order of the released energy predicted by the nanoflare theory. Most events appear to be located at the edges of network lanes and magnetic flux concentrations, suggesting that these coronal microjets are likely generated by magnetic reconnection between small-scale magnetic loops and the adjacent network field.
The goal of this paper is to study the smallest brightening events observed in the EUV quiet Sun. We use commissioning data taken by the EUI instrument onboard the recently launched Solar Orbiter mission. On 2020 May 30, EUI was situated at 0.556AU from the Sun. Its HRIEUV telescope 17.4nm passband reached an exceptionally high two-pixel spatial resolution of 400km. The size and duration of small-scale structures is determined in the HRIEUV data, while their height is estimated from triangulation with the simultaneous SDO/AIA data. This is the first stereoscopy of small scale brightenings at high resolution. We observed small localised brightenings (campfires) in a quiet Sun region with lengthscales between 400km and 4000km and durations between 10 and 200s. The smallest and weakest of these HRIEUV brightenings have not been observed before. Simultaneous HRILYA observations do not show localised brightening events, but the locations of the HRIEUV events correspond clearly to the chromospheric network. Comparison with simultaneous AIA images shows that most events can also be identified in the 17.1nm, 19.3nm, 21.1nm, and 30.4nm passbands of AIA, although they appear weaker and blurred. DEM analysis indicates coronal temperatures peaking at log(T)~6.1-6.15. We determined the height of a few campfires, which is between 1000 and 5000km above the photosphere. We conclude that campfires are mostly coronal in nature and are rooted in the magnetic flux concentrations of the chromospheric network. We interpret these events as a new extension to the flare/microflare/nanoflare family. Given their low height, the EUI campfires could be a new element of the fine structure of the transition region/low corona: apexes of small-scale loops that are internally heated to coronal temperatures.
The 3D fine structure of the solar atmosphere is still not fully understood as most of the available observations are taken from a single vantage point. The goal of the paper is to study the 3D distribution of small-scale brightening events (campfires) discovered in the EUV quiet Sun by the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI) aboard Solar Orbiter. We used a first commissioning data set acquired by the EUIs High Resolution EUV telescope on 30 May 2020 in the 174 {AA} passband and we combined it with simultaneous data taken by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory in a similar 171 {AA} passband. The two-pixel spatial resolution of the two telescopes is 400 km and 880 km, respectively, which is sufficient to identify the campfires in both data sets. The two spacecraft had an angular separation of around 31.5 degrees (essentially in heliographic longitude), which allowed for the 3D reconstruction of the campfire position. These observations represent the first time that stereoscopy was achieved for brightenings at such a small scale. Manual and automatic triangulation methods were used to characterize the campfire data. The height of the campfires is located between 1000 km and 5000 km above the photosphere and we find a good agreement between the manual and automatic methods. The internal structure of campfires is mostly unresolved by AIA; however, for a particularly large campfire, we were able to triangulate a few pixels, which are all in a narrow range between 2500 and 4500 km. The low height of EUI campfires suggests that they belong to the previously unresolved fine structure of the transition region and low corona of the quiet Sun. They are probably apexes of small-scale dynamic loops heated internally to coronal temperatures. This work demonstrates that high-resolution stereoscopy of structures in the solar atmosphere has become feasible.
Recent IRIS observations have revealed a prevalence of intermittent small-scale jets with apparent speeds of 80 - 250 km s$^{-1}$, emanating from small-scale bright regions inside network boundaries of coronal holes. We find that these network jets appear not only in coronal holes but also in quiet-sun regions. Using IRIS 1330A (C II) slit-jaw images, we extract several parameters of these network jets, e.g. apparent speed, length, lifetime and increase in foot-point brightness. Using several observations, we find that some properties of the jets are very similar but others are obviously different between the quiet sun and coronal holes. For example, our study shows that the coronal-hole jets appear to be faster and longer than those in the quiet sun. This can be directly attributed to a difference in the magnetic configuration of the two regions with open magnetic field lines rooted in coronal holes and magnetic loops often present in quiet sun. We have also detected compact bright loops, likely transition region loops, mostly in quiet sun. These small loop-like regions are generally devoid of network jets. In spite of different magnetic structures in the coronal hole and quiet sun in the transition region, there appears to be no substantial difference for the increase in foot-point brightness of the jets, which suggests that the generation mechanism of these network jets is likely the same in both regions.