Investigating the Transition Region Explosive Events and Their Relationship to Network Jets

Abstract

Abstract Recent imaging observations with the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) have revealed prevalent intermittent jets with apparent speeds of 80–250 km s−1 from the network lanes in the solar transition region (TR). Additionally, spectroscopic observations of the TR lines have revealed the frequent presence of highly non-Gaussian line profiles with enhanced emission at the line wings, often referred to as explosive events (EEs). Using simultaneous imaging and spectroscopic observations from IRIS, we investigate the relationship between EEs and network jets. We first identify EEs from the Si iv 1393.755 Å line profiles in our observations, then examine related features in the 1330 Å slit-jaw images. Our analysis suggests that EEs with double peaks or enhancements in both wings appear to be located at either the footpoints of network jets or transient compact brightenings. These EEs are most likely produced by magnetic reconnection. We also find that EEs with enhancements only at the blue wing are mainly located on network jets, away from the footpoints. These EEs clearly result from the superposition of the high-speed network jets on the TR background. In addition, EEs showing enhancement only at the red wing of the line are often located around the jet footpoints, which is possibly caused by the superposition of reconnection downflows on the background emission. Moreover, we find some network jets that are not associated with any detectable EEs. Our analysis suggests that some EEs are related to the birth or propagation of network jets, and that others are not connected to network jets.