Study of a filament with a circularly polarized beam at 3.8 cm

Abstract

Extensive observations of left and right circularly polarized emission were carried out with the 120 ft Haystack antenna, which at 3.8 cm has a HPBW of 4.4′. During a very quiet period, September 22–26, 1974, two regions were observed in the southern hemisphere of the Sun with brightness temperatures approximately 10% below the surrounding solar disk temperature. Hα photographs show that the main region was associated with a long filament. The separation between the center of the radio depression and the filament increased as the filament advanced toward the limb, with the depression finally disappearing when the filament was at a radial distance >0.8 r⊙ from the center of the solar disk. These observations are in agreement with a filament model consisting of a thin, tall and exceedingly long sheet of enhanced density encaged in a large and equally long tunnel-like cavity of lower density. The electron density at the 3.8 cm emission level which occurs immediately below the transition zone was estimated to be lower inside the cavity than outside by a factor of 2. The origin of the other depression remains unclear because no relation to any Hα or magnetic feature could be found. A possible association with a coronal hole could not be established because no pertinent EUV or X-ray data were available. It would be of interest to investigate in future observations if a secondary depression is normally associated with the primary depression region over a long filament.