Coronal Heating Observed with Hi-C

The recent launch of the HighResolution Coronal Imager (HiC) as a sounding rocket has offered a new, different view of the Sun. With approx 0.3" resolution and 5 second cadence, HiC reveals dynamic, smallscale structure within a complicated active region, including coronal braiding, reconnection regions, Alfven waves, and flows along active region fans. By combining the HiC data with other available data, we have compiled a rich data set that can be used to address many outstanding questions in solar physics. Though the HiC rocket flight was short (only 5 minutes), the added insight of the smallscale structure gained from the HiC data allows us to look at this active region and other active regions with new understanding. In this talk, I will review the first results from the HiC sounding rocket and discuss the impact of these results on the coronal heating problem

The Evolution of Transition Region Loops Using IRIS and AIA

Over the past 50 years, the model for the structure of the solar transition region has evolved from a simple transition layer between the cooler chromosphere to the hotter corona to a complex and diverse region that is dominated by complete loops that never reach coronal temperatures. The IRIS slitjaw images show many complete transition region loops. Several of the "coronal" channels in the SDO AIA instrument include contributions from weak transition region lines. In this work, we combine slitjaw images from IRIS with these channels to determine the evolution of the loops. We develop a simple model for the temperature and density evolution of the loops that can explain the simultaneous observations. Finally, we estimate the percentage of AIA emission that originates in the transition region

Modeling a Full Coronal Loop Observed with Hinode EIS and SDO AIA

Physical parameters measured from an observation of a coronal loop from Gupta et al. (2015) using Hinode/EIS and SDO/AIA were used as input for the hydrodynamic, impulsively heating NRLSOFM 1-d loop model. The model was run at eight different energy inputs and used the measured quantities of temperature (0.73 MK), density (10(sup 8.5)cm(sup -3) and minimum loop lifetime to evaluate the success of the model at recreating the observations. The loop was measured by us to have an unprojected length of 236 Mm and was assumed to be almost perpendicular to the solar surface (tilt of 3.5 degrees) and have a dipolar geometry. Our results show that two of our simulation runs (with input energies of 0.01 and 0.02 ergs cm(sup -3)S(sup -1) closely match the temperature/density combination exhibited by the loop observation. However, our simulated loops only remain in the temperature sensitive region of the Mg 278.4 Angstrom filter for 500 and 800 seconds respectively which is less than the 1200 seconds that the loop is observed for with EIS in order to make the temperature/density measurements over the loop's entire length. This leads us to conclude that impulsive heating of a single loop is not complex enough to explain this observation. Additional steady heating or a collection of additional strands along the line-of-sight would help to align the simulation with the observation

Cooling Active Region Loops Observed With SXT and TRACE

An Impulsive Heating Multiple Strand (IHMS) Model is able to reproduce the observational characteristics of EUV (~ 1 MK) active region loops. This model implies that some of the loops must reach temperatures where X-ray filters are sensitive (> 2.5 MK) before they cool to EUV temperatures. Hence, some bright EUV loops must be preceded by bright X-ray loops. Previous analysis of X-ray and EUV active region observations, however, have concluded that EUV loops are not preceded by X-ray loops. In this paper, we examine two active regions observed in both X-ray and EUV filters and analyze the evolution of five loops over several hours. These loops first appear bright in the X-ray images and later appear bright in the EUV images. The delay between the appearance of the loops in the X-ray and EUV filters is as little as 1 hour and as much as 3 hours. All five loops appear as single ``monolithic'' structures in the X-ray images, but are resolved into many smaller structures in the (higher resolution) EUV images. The positions of the loops appear to shift during cooling implying that the magnetic field is changing as the loops evolve. There is no correlation between the brightness of the loop in the X-ray and EUV filters meaning a bright X-ray loop does not necessarily cool to a bright EUV loop and vice versa. The progression of the loops from X-ray images to EUV images and the observed substructure is qualitatively consistent with the IMHS model.Comment: 16 pages, 6 figures, accepted to Astrophysical Journa

The Need for X-Ray Spectroscopy

For over four decades, X-ray, EUV, and UV spectral observations have been used to measure physical properties of the solar atmosphere. During this time, there has been substantial improvement in the spectral, spatial, and temporal resolution of the observations for the EUV and UV wavelength ranges. At wavelengths below 100 Angstroms, however, observations of the solar corona with simultaneous spatial and spectral resolution are limited, and not since the late 1970's have spatially resolved solar X-ray spectra been measured. The soft-X-ray wavelength range is dominated by emission lines formed at high temperatures and provides diagnostics unavailable in any other wavelength range. In this presentation, we will discuss the important science questions that can be answered using spatially and spectrally resolved X-ray spectra

Combining Active Region Observations and Models to Confront Coronal Heating Theories

No abstract availabl