Emerging Flux and the Heating of Coronal Loops

Abstract

Observations of various instruments on board Yohkoh, SOHO, and TRACE complement high-resolution observations of the balloon-borne Flare Genesis Experiment, obtained on January 25, 2000. A subset of the TRACE loops are located in the vicinity of the SXT loops in the NOAA emerging active region 8844, but never coincide with them. We find that coronal loops appeared 6 ± 2 hr after the first detection of emerging magnetic flux. The loops evolved rapidly when the active region entered its impulsive flux emergence phase. In the low chromosphere, flux emergence was reflected in intense Ellerman bomb activity. Besides chromosphere, we find that Ellerman bombs may also heat the transition region, by contributing to the moss emission. Areas prolific in Ellerman bombs show moss ∼ 100% brighter than areas without Ellerman bombs. Only the strongest Ellerman bombs can heat their surroundings to coronal temperatures. In the corona, we find a spatio-temporal anti-correlation between the soft X-ray (SXT) and the extreme ultraviolet (TRACE) loops: First, the SXT loops preceded the appearance of the TRACE loops by 30 — 40 min. Second, the TRACE loops had different shapes and different footpoints compared to the SXT loops. The SXT and TRACE loops are probably formed independently.