Letter to the Editor

Solar atmospheric oscillations and the chromospheric magnetic topology

¹ INAF – Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, 50125 Firenze, Italy e-mail: vecchio@arcetri.astro.it
² National Solar Observatory, PO Box 62, Sunspot NM 88349, USA

Received: 19 September 2006
Accepted: 1 November 2006

Abstract

Aims.We investigate the oscillatory properties of the quiet solar chromosphere in relation to the underlying photosphere, with particular regard to the effects of the magnetic topology.

Methods.For the first time we perform a Fourier analysis on a sequence of line-of-sight velocities measured simultaneously in a photospheric (Fe I 709.0 nm) and a chromospheric line (Ca II 854.2 nm). The velocities were obtained from full spectroscopic data acquired at high spatial resolution with the Interferometric BIdimensional Spectrometer (IBIS). The field of view encompasses a full supergranular cell, allowing us to discriminate between areas with different magnetic characteristics.

Results.We show that waves with frequencies above the acoustic cut-off propagate from the photosphere to upper layers only in restricted areas of the quiet Sun. A large fraction of the quiet chromosphere is in fact occupied by “magnetic shadows”, surrounding network regions, that we identify as originating from fibril-like structures observed in the core intensity of the Ca II line. We show that a large fraction of the chromospheric acoustic power at frequencies below the acoustic cut-off, residing in the proximity of the magnetic network elements, directly propagates from the underlying photosphere. This supports recent results arguing that network magnetic elements can channel low-frequency photospheric oscillations into the chromosphere, thus providing a way to input mechanical energy in the upper layers.