Context. For investigating spicules from the photosphere to coronal heights, the new Hinode/SOT long series of high resolution observations from Space taken in CaII H line emission offers an improved way to look at their remarkable dynamical behavior using images free of seeing effects. They should be put in the context of the huge amount of already accumulated material from ground-based instruments, including high- resolution spectra of off-limb spicules. Results. The surge-like behavior of solar polar region spicules supports the untwisting multi-component interpretation of spicules exhibiting helical dynamics. Several tall spicules are found with (i) upward and downward flows similar at lower and middle-levels, the rate of upward motion being slightly higher at high levels; (ii) the left and right-hand velocities are also increasing with height; (iii) a large number of multi-component spicules show shearing motion of both left-handed and right-handed senses occurring simultaneously, which might be understood as twisting (or untwisting) threads. The number of turns depends on the overall diameter of the structure made of components and changes from at least one turn for the smallest structure to at most two or three turns for surge-like broad structures; the curvature along the spicule corresponds to a low turn number similar to a transverse kink mode oscillation along the threads.
In the lower solar atmosphere, the chromosphere is permeated by jets known as spicules, in which plasma is propelled at speeds of 50 to 150 kilometers per second into the corona. The origin of the spicules is poorly understood, although they are expected to play a role in heating the million-degree corona and are associated with Alfvénic waves that help drive the solar wind. We compare magnetohydrodynamic simulations of spicules with observations from the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph and the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope. Spicules are shown to occur when magnetic tension is amplified an…
In addition to their jet-like dynamic behaviour, spicules usually exhibit strong transverse speeds, multi-stranded structure and heating from chromospheric to transition region temperatures. In this work we first analyse \textit{Hinode} \& \textit{IRIS} observations of spicules and find different behaviours in terms of their Doppler velocity evolution and collective motion of their sub-structure. Some have a Doppler shift sign change that is rather fixed along the spicule axis, and lack coherence in the oscillatory motion of strand-like structure, matching rotation models or long wavelength to…
Spicules are the most ubuiquitous type of jets in the solar atmosphere. The advent of high-resolution imaging and spectroscopy from the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) and ground-based observatories has revealed the presence of very high apparent motions of order 100-300 km/s in spicules, as measured in the plane of the sky. However, line-of-sight measurements of such high speeds have been difficult to obtain, with values deduced from Doppler shifts in spectral lines typically of order 30-70 km/s. In this work we resolve this long-standing discrepancy using recent 2.5D radiative M…
We investigated the off-limb spicules observed in the Mg II h and k lines by IRIS in a solar polar coronal hole. We analyzed the large dataset of obtained spectra to extract quantitative information about the line intensities, shifts, and widths. The observed Mg II line profiles are broad and double-peaked at lower altitudes, broad but flat-topped at middle altitudes, and narrow and single-peaked with the largest Doppler shifts at higher altitudes. We use 1D non-LTE vertical slab models (i.e. models which consider departures from Local Thermodynamic Equilibrium) in single-slab and multi-slab c…
Many solar coronal jets result from erupting miniature-filament ("minifilament") magnetic flux ropes that reconnect with encountered surrounding far-reaching field. Many of those minifilament flux ropes are apparently built and triggered to erupt by magnetic flux cancelation. If that cancelation (or some other process) results in the flux rope's field having twist, then the reconnection with the far-reaching field transfers much of that twist to that reconnected far-reaching field. In cases where that surrounding field is open, the twist can propagate to far distances from the Sun as a magneti…
Proving the magnetic configuration of solar spicules has hitherto been difficult due to the lack of spatial resolution and image stability during off-limb ground-based observations. We report spectropolarimetric observations of spicules taken in the He I 1083 nm spectral region with the Tenerife Infrared Polarimeter II at the German Vacuum Tower Telescope of the Observatorio del Teide (Tenerife; Canary Islands; Spain). The data provide the variation with geometrical height of the Stokes I, Q, U, and V profiles whose encoded information allows the determination of the magnetic field vector by m…
Formation Dynamics of a Rotating Solar Spicule-like Event and Associated Energy-Mass Transport
Yunnan Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院云南天文台);University of Chinese Academy of Sciences(中国科学院大学);Yunnan Key Laboratory of Solar Physics and Space Science(云南省太阳物理与空间科学重点实验室);National Key Laboratory of Deep Space Exploration, School of Earth and Space Sciences, University of Science and Technology of China(中国科学技术大学地球和空间科学学院深空探测全国重点实验室);CAS Center for Excellence in Comparative Planetology/CAS Key Laboratory of Geospace Environment/Mengcheng National Geophysical Observatory, University of Science and Technology of China(中国科学技术大学中国科学院比较行星学卓越创新中心/中国科学院空间环境重点实验室/蒙城国家地球物理观测站)
Aims. We use high-resolution spectropolarimetric observations in the Ca ii 8542 A line obtained with the SST to study the magnetic field in solar spicules. Methods. The equations that result from the application of the Weak Field Approximation (WFA) to the radiative transfer equations are used to infer the LOS component of the magnetic field (BLOS). Two restrictive conditions are imposed on the Stokes I and V profiles at each pixel before they can be used in a Bayesian inversion to compute its BLOS. Results. The LOS magnetic field component has been inferred in six data sets totalling 448 spec…
A new type of chromospheric jets in a polar limb of a coronal hole is discovered in the Ca II filtergram of the Solar Optical Telescope on board the \textit{Hinode}. We identify 30 jets in the Ca II movie of duration of 53 min. The average speed at their maximum heights is found to be 132$\pm$44 km s$^{-1}$ ranging from 57 km s$^{-1}$ to 264 km s$^{-1}$ along the propagation direction. The average lifetime is 20$\pm$6 ranging from 11 seconds to 36 seconds. The speed and lifetime of the jets are located at end-tails of those parameters determined for type II spicules, hence implying a new type …
Coronal Bright Points (CBPs) are ubiquitous structures in the solar atmosphere composed of hot small-scale loops observed in EUV or X-Rays in the quiet Sun and coronal holes. They are key elements to understand the heating of the corona; nonetheless, basic questions regarding their heating mechanisms, the chromosphere underneath, or the effects of flux emergence in these structures remain open. We have used the Bifrost code to carry out a 2D experiment in which a coronal-hole magnetic nullpoint configuration evolves perturbed by realistic granulation. To compare with observations, synthetic SD…
We combine observations of the Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (CoMP) and the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) to study the characteristic properties of (propagating) Alfvenic motions and quasi-periodic intensity disturbances in polar plumes. This unique combination of instruments highlights the physical richness of the processes taking place at the base of the (fast) solar wind. The (parallel) intensity perturbations with intensity enhancements around 1% have an apparent speed of 120 km/s (in both the 171A and 193A passbands) and a periodicity …
We investigate the conditions at which high-mode magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves propagating in a spinning solar macrospicule can become unstable with respect to the Kelvin--Helmholtz instability (KHI). We consider the macrospicule as a weakly twisted cylindrical magnetic flux tube moving along and rotating around its axis. Our study is based on the dispersion relation (in complex variables) of MHD waves obtained from the linearized MHD equations of an incompressible plasma for the macrospicule and cool ($β= 0$, rate of the plasma to the magnetic pressure) plasma for its environment. This disp…
We examined the structure near the solar limb in TRACE images of the continuum and in the 1600 and 171 A bands as well as in SDO images in the continuum (from HMI) and all AIA bands. The images in different wavelength bands were carefully coaligned by using the position of Mercury for TRACE and Venus for SDO during their transit in front of the solar disk in 1999 and 2012 respectively. Chromospheric absorbing structures in the TRACE 171 A band are best visible 7" above the white light limb, very close to the inner limb, defined as the inflection point of the rising part of the center-to-limb i…
We study 14 large solar jets observed in polar coronal holes. In EUV movies from SDO/AIA, each jet appears similar to most X-ray jets and EUV jets that erupt in coronal holes, but each is exceptional in that it goes higher than most, so high that it is observed in the outer corona beyond 2.2 RSun in images from the SOHO/LASCO/C2 coronagraph. From AIA He II 304 Å movies and LASCO/C2 running-difference images of these high-reaching jets, we find: (1) the front of the jet transits the corona below 2.2 RSun at a speed typically several times the sound speed; (2) each jet displays an exceptionally …
First direct measurements of transverse waves in solar polar plumes using SDO/AIA
人们对确定沿太阳结构传播的Alfvénic波对日冕加热和太阳风加速问题的精确贡献非常感兴趣。自从SDO/AIA发射以来,已经有可能解决边缘外太阳极羽流中的横向振荡,最近McIntosh等人(2011,Nature,475,477)得出结论,这种波的能量足以在加热日冕和加速快速太阳风中发挥作用。然而,这一结果是基于与蒙特卡罗模拟的比较,通过直接测量的确认仍然是悬而未决的。因此,这封信报告了第一次直接测量太阳极地羽流中的横波运动。在4小时的时间内,我们测量了SDO/AIA 171 °通道中观察到的596个不同振荡的横向位移、周期和速度振幅。我们发现一个广泛的非均匀分布的参数值,这是很好地描述了对数正态分布的峰值在$234$公里,$121$的和$8$公里的$^{-1}$,平均值和标准偏差的$407\pm297$公里,$173\pm118$的和$14\pm10$公里的$^{-1}$。在标准差范围内,我们的直接测量结果与以前的结果基本一致。然而,占我们观察到的整个非均匀参数分布,我们计算的能量通量$9-24$ W m $^{-2}$,这是$4-10$倍以下的太阳风加速的能量需求。因此,我们的研究结果表明,横向MHD波解决SDO/AIA不能占主导地位的能源快速太阳风加速的开放场日冕。