1,216 research outputs found
Three-dimensional numerical simulations of fast-to-Alfven conversion in sunspots
The conversion of fast waves to the Alfven mode in a realistic sunspot
atmosphere is studied through three-dimensional numerical simulations. An
upward propagating fast acoustic wave is excited in the high-beta region of the
model. The new wave modes generated at the conversion layer are analyzed from
the projections of the velocity and magnetic field in their characteristic
directions, and the computation of their wave energy and fluxes. The analysis
reveals that the maximum efficiency of the conversion to the slow mode is
obtained for inclinations of 25 degrees and low azimuths, while the Alfven wave
conversions peaks at high inclinations and azimuths between 50 and 120 degrees.
Downward propagating Alfven waves appear at the regions of the sunspot where
the orientation of the magnetic field is in the direction opposite to the wave
propagation, since at these locations the Alfven wave couples better with the
downgoing fast magnetic wave which are reflected due to the gradients of the
Alfven speed. The simulations shows that the Alfven energy at the chromosphere
is comparable to the acoustic energy of the slow mode, being even higher at
high inclined magnetic fields.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
Magneto-acoustic waves in sunspots: first results from a new 3D nonlinear magnetohydrodynamic code
Waves observed in the photosphere and chromosphere of sunspots show complex
dynamics and spatial patterns. The interpretation of high-resolution sunspot
wave observations requires modeling of three-dimensional non-linear wave
propagation and mode transformation in the sunspot upper layers in realistic
spot model atmospheres. Here we present the first results of such modeling. We
have developed a 3D non-linear numerical code specially designed to calculate
the response of magnetic structures in equilibrium to an arbitrary
perturbation. The code solves the 3D nonlinear MHD equations for perturbations;
it is stabilized by hyper-diffusivity terms and is fully parallelized. The
robustness of the code is demonstrated by a number of standard tests. We
analyze several simulations of a sunspot perturbed by pulses of different
periods at subphotospheric level, from short periods, introduced for academic
purposes, to longer and realistic periods of three and five minutes. We present
a detailed description of the three-dimensional mode transformation in a
non-trivial sunspot-like magnetic field configuration, including the conversion
between fast and slow magneto-acoustic waves and the Alfv\'en wave, by
calculation of the wave energy fluxes. Our main findings are the following: (1)
the conversion from acoustic to the Alfv\'en mode is only observed if the the
driving pulse is located out of the sunspot axis, but this conversion is
energetically inefficient; (2) as a consequence of the cut-off effects and
refraction of the fast magneto-acoustic mode, the energy of the evanescent
waves with periods around 5 minutes remains almost completely below the level
beta=1; (3) waves with frequencies above the cut-off propagate field-aligned to
the chromosphere and their power becomes dominating over that of evanescent
5-minute oscillations, in agreement with observations
Multi-layer study of wave propagation in sunspots
We analyze the propagation of waves in sunspots from the photosphere to the
chromosphere using time series of co-spatial Ca II H intensity spectra
(including its line blends) and polarimetric spectra of Si I 10827 and the He I
10830 multiplet. From the Doppler shifts of these lines we retrieve the
variation of the velocity along the line-of-sight at several heights. Phase
spectra are used to obtain the relation between the oscillatory signals. Our
analysis reveals standing waves at frequencies lower than 4 mHz and a
continuous propagation of waves at higher frequencies, which steepen into
shocks in the chromosphere when approaching the formation height of the Ca II H
core. The observed non-linearities are weaker in Ca II H than in He I lines.
Our analysis suggests that the Ca II H core forms at a lower height than the He
I 10830 line: a time delay of about 20 s is measured between the Doppler signal
detected at both wavelengths. We fit a model of linear slow magnetoacoustic
wave propagation in a stratified atmosphere with radiative losses according to
Newton's cooling law to the phase spectra and derive the difference in the
formation height of the spectral lines. We show that the linear model describes
well the wave propagation up to the formation height of Ca II H, where
non-linearities start to become very important.Comment: Accepted by The Astrophysical Journa
Magneto-acoustic wave energy from numerical simulations of an observed sunspot umbra
We aim at reproducing the height dependence of sunspot wave signatures
obtained from spectropolarimetric observations through 3D MHD numerical
simulations. A magneto-static sunspot model based on the properties of the
observed sunspot is constructed and perturbed at the photosphere introducing
the fluctuations measured with the \SiI\ 10827 \AA\ line. The results
of the simulations are compared with the oscillations observed simultaneously
at different heights from the \HeI\ 10830 \AA\ line, the \CaIIH\ core
and the \FeI\ blends in the wings of the \CaIIH\ line. The simulations show a
remarkable agreement with the observations. They reproduce the velocity maps
and power spectra at the formation heights of the observed lines, as well as
the phase and amplification spectra between several pair of lines. We find that
the stronger shocks at the chromosphere are accompanied with a delay between
the observed signal and the simulated one at the corresponding height,
indicating that shocks shift the formation height of the chromospheric lines to
higher layers. Since the simulated wave propagation matches very well the
properties of the observed one, we are able to use the numerical calculations
to quantify the energy contribution of the magneto-acoustic waves to the
chromospheric heating in sunspots. Our findings indicate that the energy
supplied by these waves is too low to balance the chromospheric radiative
losses. The energy contained at the formation height of the lowermost \SiI\
10827 \AA\ line in the form of slow magneto-acoustic waves is already
insufficient to heat the higher layers, and the acoustic energy which reaches
the chromosphere is around 3-9 times lower than the required amount of energy.
The contribution of the magnetic energy is even lower.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journa
Signatures of the impact of flare ejected plasma on the photosphere of a sunspot light-bridge
We investigate the properties of a sunspot light-bridge, focusing on the
changes produced by the impact of a plasma blob ejected from a C-class flare.
We observed a sunspot in active region NOAA 12544 using spectropolarimetric
raster maps of the four Fe I lines around 15655 \AA\ with the GREGOR Infrared
Spectrograph (GRIS), narrow-band intensity images sampling the Fe I 6173 \AA\
line with the GREGOR Fabry-P\'erot Interferometer (GFPI), and intensity broad
band images in G-band and Ca II H band with the High-resolution Fast Imager
(HiFI). All these instruments are located at the GREGOR telescope at the
Observatorio del Teide, Tenerife, Spain. The data cover the time before,
during, and after the flare event. The analysis is complemented with
Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) and Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI)
data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). The physical parameters of the
atmosphere at differents heights were inferred using spectral-line inversion
techniques. We identify photospheric and chromospheric brightenings, heating
events, and changes in the Stokes profiles associated to the flare eruption and
the subsequent arrival of the plasma blob to the light bridge, after traveling
along an active region loop. The measurements suggest that these phenomena are
the result of reconnection events driven by the interaction of the plasma blob
with the magnetic field topology of the light bridge.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&
Nonlinear force-free modelling: influence of inaccuracies in the measured magnetic vector
Context: Solar magnetic fields are regularly extrapolated into the corona
starting from photospheric magnetic measurements that can suffer from
significant uncertainties. Aims: Here we study how inaccuracies introduced into
the maps of the photospheric magnetic vector from the inversion of ideal and
noisy Stokes parameters influence the extrapolation of nonlinear force-free
magnetic fields. Methods: We compute nonlinear force-free magnetic fields based
on simulated vector magnetograms, which have been produced by the inversion of
Stokes profiles, computed froma 3-D radiation MHD simulation snapshot. These
extrapolations are compared with extrapolations starting directly from the
field in the MHD simulations, which is our reference. We investigate how line
formation and instrumental effects such as noise, limited spatial resolution
and the effect of employing a filter instrument influence the resulting
magnetic field structure. The comparison is done qualitatively by visual
inspection of the magnetic field distribution and quantitatively by different
metrics. Results: The reconstructed field is most accurate if ideal Stokes data
are inverted and becomes less accurate if instrumental effects and noise are
included. The results demonstrate that the non-linear force-free field
extrapolation method tested here is relatively insensitive to the effects of
noise in measured polarization spectra at levels consistent with present-day
instruments. Conclusions heading: Our results show that we can reconstruct the
coronal magnetic field as a nonlinear force-free field from realistic
photospheric measurements with an accuracy of a few percent, at least in the
absence of sunspots.Comment: A&A, accepted, 9 Pages, 4 Figure
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