The details of the mechanism(s) responsible for the observed heating and dynamics of the solar atmosphere still remain a mystery. Magnetohydrodynamic waves are thought to have a vital role in this process. Although it has been shown that incompressible waves are ubiquitous in off-limb solar atmospheric observations, their energy cannot be readily dissipated. Here we provide, for the first time, on-disk observation and identification of concurrent magnetohydrodynamic wave modes, both compressible and incompressible, in the solar chromosphere. The observed ubiquity and estimated energy flux associated with the detected magnetohydrodynamic waves suggest the chromosphere is a vast reservoir of wave energy with the potential to meet chromospheric and coronal heating requirements. We are also able to propose an upper bound on the flux of the observed wave energy that is able to reach the corona based on observational constraints, which has important implications for the suggested mechanism(s) for quiescent coronal heating.

We present observational evidence of compressible magnetohydrodynamic wave modes propagating from the solar photosphere through to the base of the transition region in a solar magnetic pore. High cadence images were obtained simultaneously across four wavelength bands using the Dunn Solar Telescope. Employing Fourier and wavelet techniques, sausage-mode oscillations displaying significant power were detected in both intensity and area fluctuations. The intensity and area fluctuations exhibit a range of periods from 181 − 412 s, with an average period ∼290 s, consistent with the global p-mode spectrum. Intensity and area oscillations present in adjacent bandpasses were found to be out-of-phase with one another, displaying phase angles of 6.12 • , 5.82 • and 15.97 • between 4170Å continuum -G-band, G-band -Na I D 1 and Na I D 1 -Ca II K heights, respectively, reiterating the presence of upwardly-propagating sausage-mode waves. A phase relationship of ∼0 • between same-bandpass emission and area perturbations of the pore best categorises the waves as belonging to the 'slow' regime of a dispersion diagram. Theoretical calculations reveal that the waves are surface modes, with initial photospheric energies in excess of 35 000 W m −2 . The wave energetics indicate a substantial decrease in energy with atmospheric height, confirming that magnetic pores are able to transport waves that exhibit appreciable energy damping, which may release considerable energy into the local chromospheric plasma.

Spicules are rapidly evolving fine-scale jets of magnetized plasma in the solar chromosphere. It remains unclear how these prevalent jets originate from the solar surface and what role they play in heating the solar atmosphere. Using the Goode Solar Telescope at the Big Bear Solar Observatory, we observed spicules emerging within minutes of the appearance of opposite-polarity magnetic flux around dominant-polarity magnetic field concentrations. Data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory showed subsequent heating of the adjacent corona. The dynamic interaction of magnetic fields (likely due to magnetic reconnection) in the partially ionized lower solar atmosphere appears to generate these spicules and heat the upper solar atmosphere.

There are now many observations of waves in the solar corona with periods around 5 minutes. The source of these waves is uncertain, although global p-modes in the photosphere are an obvious candidate, given the similarity of the dominant periods. However, p-modes are traditionally considered evanescent in the upper photosphere, and it has been unclear how they could propagate through the chromosphere into the corona. Using a numerical model, we show that photospheric oscillations with periods around 5 minutes can actually propagate into the corona so long as they are guided along an inclined magnetic flux tube. The nonverticality of the flux tube increases the acoustic cutoff period to values closer to the dominant periods of the photospheric oscillations, thus allowing tunneling or even direct propagation into the outer atmosphere. The photospheric oscillations develop into shocks, which drive chromospheric spicules and reach the corona. We suggest that Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) observations of propagating magnetoacoustic waves in the corona represent these shocked and tunneled photospheric oscillations. We also explore how seismology of these waves could be exploited to determine the connectivity between photosphere and corona.

No abstract

No abstract

The National Science Foundation’s Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) will revolutionize our ability to measure, understand, and model the basic physical processes that control the structure and dynamics of the Sun and its atmosphere. The first-light DKIST images, released publicly on 29 January 2020, only hint at the extraordinary capabilities that will accompany full commissioning of the five facility instruments. With this Critical Science Plan (CSP) we attempt to anticipate some of what those capabilities will enable, providing a snapshot of some of the scientific pursuits that the DKIST hopes to engage as start-of-operations nears. The work builds on the combined contributions of the DKIST Science Working Group (SWG) and CSP Community members, who generously shared their experiences, plans, knowledge, and dreams. Discussion is primarily focused on those issues to which DKIST will uniquely contribute.

We study kink waves and oscillations in a thin expanding magnetic tube in the presence of flow. The tube consists of a core region and a thin transitional region at the tube boundary. In this region the plasma density monotonically decreases from its value in the core region to the value outside the tube. Both the plasma density and velocity of background flow vary along the tube and in time. Using the multiscale expansions we derive the system of two equations describing the kink oscillations. When there is no transitional layer the oscillations are described by the first of these two equations. We use this equation to study the effect of plasma density variation with time on kink oscillations of an expanding tube with a sharp boundary. We assume that the characteristic time of the density variation is much greater than the characteristic time of kink oscillations. Then we use the Wentzel-Kramer-Brillouin (WKB) method to derive the expression for the adiabatic invariant, which is the quantity that is conserved when the plasma density varies. The general theoretical results are applied to the kink oscillations of coronal magnetic loops. We consider an expanding loop with the half-circle shape and assume that the plasma temperature inside a loop decays exponentially with time. We numerically calculated the dependences of the fundamental mode frequency, the ratio of frequencies of the first overtone and fundamental mode, and the oscillation amplitude on time. We obtained that the oscillation frequency and amplitude increase and the frequency ratio decreases due to cooling. The amplitude increase is stronger for loops with a greater expansion factor. This effect is also more pronounced for higher loops. However, it is fairly moderate even for loops that are quite high.