3D dynamic forward modeling of polar plumes using Hidden Markov Trees

Abstract

The polar plumes are very fine structures of the solar K-corona lying around the poles and visible during the period of minimum of activity. These poorly known structures are linked with the solar magnetic field and with numerous coronal phenomena such as the fast solar wind and the coronal holes. The SOHO space mission has provided some continuous observations to high cadence (each 10 min). From these observations the images of the K-corona have been derived and preprocessed with an adapted anisotropic filtering. Then, a peculiar type of sinogram called Time Intensity Diagram (TID) has been built. It is adapted to the evolution of polar plumes with the time. A multiresolution wavelet analysis of the TID has then revealed that the spatial distribution of the polar plumes as well as their temporal evolution were fractal. The present study consists in simulating polar plumes by forward modeling techniques in order to validate several assumptions concerning their nature and their temporal evolution. Our work involves two main steps. The first one concerns the simulation of polar plumes and the computation of their corresponding TID. The second one concerns the estimation of analysis criteria in order to compare the original TID and the simulated ones. Static and dynamic models were both used in order to confirm the fractal behavior of the temporal evolution of plumes. The most recent and promising model is based on a Hidden Markov Tree. It allows us to control the fractal parameters of the TID.