Miniature loops in the solar corona

¹ Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Justus-von-Liebig-Weg 3, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
e-mail: barczynski@mps.mpg.de
² NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, ZP 13, Huntsville, AL 35812, USA

Received: 5 July 2016
Accepted: 4 November 2016

Abstract

Context. Magnetic loops filled with hot plasma are the main building blocks of the solar corona. Usually they have lengths of the order of the barometric scale height in the corona that is 50 Mm.

Aims. Previously it has been suggested that miniature versions of hot loops exist. These would have lengths of only 1 Mm barely protruding from the chromosphere and spanning across just one granule in the photosphere. Such short loops are well established at transition region temperatures (0.1 MK), and we investigate if such miniature loops also exist at coronal temperatures (>1 MK).

Methods. We used extreme UV (EUV) imaging observations from the High-resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C) at an unprecedented spatial resolution of 0.3′′ to 0.4′′. Together with EUV imaging and magnetogram data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) and X-Ray Telescope (XRT) data from Hinode we investigated the spatial, temporal and thermal evolution of small loop-like structures in the solar corona above a plage region close to an active region and compared this to a moss area within the active region.

Results. We find that the size, motion and temporal evolution of the loop-like features are consistent with photospheric motions, suggesting a close connection to the photospheric magnetic field. Aligned magnetograms show that one of their endpoints is rooted at a magnetic concentration. Their thermal structure, as revealed together with the X-ray observations, shows significant differences to moss-like features.

Conclusions. Considering different scenarios, these features are most probably miniature versions of hot loops rooted at magnetic concentrations at opposite sides of a granule in small emerging magnetic loops (or flux tubes).