Hot Explosions in the Cool Atmosphere of the Sun
Abstract
The solar atmosphere was traditionally represented with a simple one-dimensional model. Over the past few decades, this paradigm shifted for the chromosphere and corona that constitute the outer atmosphere, which is now considered a dynamic structured envelope. Recent observations by IRIS (Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph) reveal that it is difficult to determine what is up and down even in the cool 6000-K photosphere just above the solar surface: this region hosts pockets of hot plasma transiently heated to almost 100,000 K. The energy to heat and accelerate the plasma requires a considerable fraction of the energy from flares, the largest solar disruptions. These IRIS observations not only confirm that the photosphere is more complex than conventionally thought, but also provide insight into the energy conversion in the process of magnetic reconnection.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1410.5842,
title = {Hot Explosions in the Cool Atmosphere of the Sun},
author = {H. Peter and H. Tian and W. Curdt and D. Schmit and D. Innes and B. De Pontieu and J. Lemen and A. Title and P. Boerner and N. Hurlburt and T. D. Tarbell and J. P. Wuelser and J. Martínez-Sykora and L. Kleint and L. Golub and S. McKillop and K. K. Reeves and S. Saar and P. Testa and C. Kankelborg and S. Jaeggli and M. Carlsson and V. Hansteen},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1410.5842},
year = {2014}
}
Comments
published in Science 346, 1255726 (2014), 30 pages, 13 figures; for associated movie, see http://www2.mps.mpg.de/data/outgoing/peter/papers/2014-iris-eb/fig1-movie.mov