Issue |
A&A
Volume 656, December 2021
Solar Orbiter First Results (Cruise Phase)
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | L13 | |
Number of page(s) | 7 | |
Section | Letters to the Editor | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202141683 | |
Published online | 14 December 2021 |
Letter to the Editor
Capturing transient plasma flows and jets in the solar corona⋆
1
Max-Planck-Institut für Sonnensystemforschung, Justus-von-Liebig-Weg 3, 37077 Göttingen, Germany
e-mail: chitta@mps.mpg.de
2
School of Space Research, Kyung Hee University, Yongin, Gyeonggi 446-701, Republic of Korea
3
Institut d’Astrophysique Spatiale, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay, Bât. 121, 91405 Orsay, France
4
Royal Observatory of Belgium, Ringlaan-3-Av. Circulaire, 1180 Brussels, Belgium
Received:
30
June
2021
Accepted:
30
September
2021
Intensity bursts in ultraviolet (UV) to X-ray wavelengths and plasma jets are typical signatures of magnetic reconnection and the associated impulsive heating of the solar atmospheric plasma. To gain new insights into the process, high-cadence observations are required to capture the rapid response of plasma to magnetic reconnection as well as the highly dynamic evolution of jets. Here, we report the first 2 s cadence extreme-UV observations recorded by the 174 Å High Resolution Imager of the Extreme Ultraviolet Imager on board the Solar Orbiter mission. These observations, covering a quiet-Sun coronal region, reveal the onset signatures of magnetic reconnection as localized heating events. These localized sources then exhibit repeated plasma eruptions or jet activity. Our observations show that this spatial morphological change from localized sources to jet activity could occur rapidly on timescales of about 20 s. The jets themselves are intermittent and are produced from the source region on timescales of about 20 s. In the initial phases of these events, plasma jets are observed to exhibit speeds, as inferred from propagating intensity disturbances, in the range of 100 km s−1 to 150 km s−1. These jets then propagate to lengths of about 5 Mm. We discuss examples of bidirectional and unidirectional jet activity observed to have been initiated from the initially localized bursts in the corona. The transient nature of coronal bursts and the associated plasma flows or jets along with their dynamics could provide a benchmark for magnetic reconnection models of coronal bursts and jets.
Key words: Sun: corona / Sun: magnetic fields / magnetic reconnection / plasmas
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© L. P. Chitta et al. 2021
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Open Access funding provided by Max Planck Society.
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