1,708 research outputs found
The Magnetic Properties of Heating Events on High-Temperature Active Region Loops
Understanding the relationship between the magnetic field and coronal heating
is one of the central problems of solar physics. However, studies of the
magnetic properties of impulsively heated loops have been rare. We present
results from a study of 34 evolving coronal loops observed in the Fe XVIII line
component of AIA/SDO 94 A filter images from three active regions with
different magnetic conditions. We show that the peak intensity per unit
cross-section of the loops depends on their individual magnetic and geometric
properties. The intensity scales proportionally to the average field strength
along the loop () and inversely with the loop length () for a
combined dependence of . These loop properties are
inferred from magnetic extrapolations of the photospheric HMI/SDO line-of-sight
and vector magnetic field in three approximations: potential and two Non Linear
Force-Free (NLFF) methods. Through hydrodynamic modeling (EBTEL model) we show
that this behavior is compatible with impulsively heated loops with a
volumetric heating rate that scales as .Comment: Astrophysical Journal, in pres
The Temperature Dependence of Solar Active Region Outflows
Spectroscopic observations with the EUV Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on Hinode
have revealed large areas of high speed outflows at the periphery of many solar
active regions. These outflows are of interest because they may connect to the
heliosphere and contribute to the solar wind. In this Letter we use slit
rasters from EIS in combination with narrow band slot imaging to study the
temperature dependence of an active region outflow and show that it is more
complicated than previously thought. Outflows are observed primarily in
emission lines from Fe XI - Fe XV. Observations at lower temperatures (Si VII),
in contrast, show bright fan-like structures that are dominated by downflows.
The morphology of the outflows is also different than that of the fans. This
suggests that the fan loops, which often show apparent outflows in imaging
data, are contained on closed field lines and are not directly related to the
active region outflows.Comment: Movies are available online at:
http://tcrb.nrl.navy.mil/~hwarren/temp/papers/flow_temperatures/ To be
submitted to ApJ
Towards a Quantitative Comparison of Magnetic Field Extrapolations and Observed Coronal Loops
It is widely believed that loops observed in the solar atmosphere trace out
magnetic field lines. However, the degree to which magnetic field
extrapolations yield field lines that actually do follow loops has yet to be
studied systematically. In this paper we apply three different extrapolation
techniques - a simple potential model, a NLFF model based on photospheric
vector data, and a NLFF model based on forward fitting magnetic sources with
vertical currents - to 15 active regions that span a wide range of magnetic
conditions. We use a distance metric to assess how well each of these models is
able to match field lines to the 12,202 loops traced in coronal images. These
distances are typically 1-2". We also compute the misalignment angle between
each traced loop and the local magnetic field vector, and find values of
5-12. We find that the NLFF models generally outperform the potential
extrapolation on these metrics, although the differences between the different
extrapolations are relatively small. The methodology that we employ for this
study suggests a number of ways that both the extrapolations and loop
identification can be improved.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap
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