ADAS analysis of the differential emission measure structure of the
inner solar corona. II. A study of the `quiet Sun' inhomogeneities from SOHO
CDS-NIS spectra
We present a study of the differential emission measure (DEM) of a `quiet
Sun' area observed in the extreme ultraviolet at normal incidence by the
Coronal Diagnostic Spectrometer (CDS) on the SOHO spacecraft. The data used for
this work were taken using the NISAT_S observing sequence. This takes the full
wavelength ranges from both the NIS channels (308-381 Angtr. and 513-633
Angst.) with the 2 arcsec by 240 arcsec slit, which is the narrowest slit
available, yielding the best spectral resolution. In this work we contrast the
DEM from subregions of 2 by 80 arcsec2 with that obtained from the mean
spectrum of the whole raster (20 by 240 arcsec2). We find that the DEM
maintains essentially the same shape in the subregions, differing by a constant
factor between 0.5 and 2 from the mean DEM, except in areas were the electron
density is below 2×107 cm−3 and downflow velocities of 50 km/s
are found in the transition region. Such areas are likely to contain plasma
departing from ionisation equilibrium, violating the basic assumptions
underlying the DEM method. The comparison between lines of Li-like and Be-like
ions may provide further evidence of departure from ionisation equilibrium. We
find also that line intensities tend to be lower where velocities of the order
of 30 km/s or higher are measured in transition region lines. The DEM analysis
is also exploited to improve the line identification performed by Brooks et al
(1999) and to investigate possible elemental abundance variations from region
to region. We find that the plasma has composition close to photospheric in all
the subregions examined.Comment: 18 pages, 9 figures, 7 tables. Table 5 is available only online. A
copy of Table 5 can be found at http://webusers.ct.astro.it/acl/table5.dat.
The ReadMe file is at http://webusers.ct.astro.it/acl/ReadMe. Accepted by
Astronomy and Astrophysic