Quiet Solar Transition Region Research Articles

The anomalous intensities of helium lines in the quiet solar transition region

Previous studies using observations made at low spatial and spectral resolution showed that the resonance lines of He i and He ii are anomalously strong in the quiet Sun when compared with other transition region lines formed at similar temperatures. Here, the higher spatial and spectral resolution provided by the Coronal Diagnostic Spectrometer (cds) instrument on board the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) is used to re-examine the behaviour of the He i and He ii lines and other transition region lines, in quiet regions near Sun centre. Supergranulation cell boundaries and cell interiors are examined separately. Near-simultaneous observations with the sumer instrument provide information on the lower transition region and the electron pressure. While the lines of He i and He ii have a common behaviour, as do the other transition region lines, the behaviour of the helium lines relative to the other transition region lines is significantly different. The emission measure distributions that account for all transition region lines, except those of helium, fail to produce sufficient emission in the He i and He ii resonance lines by around an order of magnitude, in both supergranulation cell boundary and cell interior regions. The electron pressure appears to be higher in the cell interiors than in the average cell boundaries, although the uncertainties are large. While the VAL-D model gives a closer match to the He i 584.3-A line, it does not successfully reproduce other transition region lines.

Doppler Shifts and Nonthermal Broadening in the Quiet Solar Transition Region: O [CSC]vi[/CSC] [CLC][/CLC

Using observations from the Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation (SUMER) experiment flown on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft, we have measured Doppler wavelength shifts and nonthermal broadening in the 1032 and 1038 A emission lines of O VI and the 1036 and 1037 A emission lines of C II. Near Sun center the C II lines exhibit an average redshift of 2 ± 3 km s-1, consistent with earlier observations in this temperature range. The O VI emission lines exhibit average Doppler velocities of 5 ± 3 km s-1, suggesting the presence of redshifted material at 2.9 × 105 K. For the O VI lines, the average nonthermal component of the observed line width is 34 ± 3 km s-1.

Pervasive variability in the quiet solar transition region

Extreme UV spectroheliograms from an experimental time series are employed to investigate the nature of the quiet solar transition region with respect to temporal variability. A statistical treatment is developed to analyze the fraction of spatial elements that yield intensity variations significantly higher than the signal noise. The EUV intensity in every spatial resolution varies on a time scale of minutes by about 10-30 percent, and the fractional amplitude of the temporal variations is found to be nearly independent of mean intensity. The paper concludes that the quiet solar transition region is probably generated and modulated by small-scale magnetic activity, since the temporal variability in the transition region is spatially uniform and rather pervasive.

The Quiet Solar Transition Region

The results of recent studies (in the UV) of the structure and dynamics of the quiet solar transition region and its role in the mass and energy balance of the outer layers of the solar atmosphere are summarized. The region is one in which temperature increases from 25,000 K to about 1 million K and the matter density, fed by the outward flowing wind and the inward streaming plasma, increases by a factor of 40. The morphology of the region is described, along with the theoretical models being applied to the observed nonthermal line broadening, Doppler wavelength shifts, temporal fluctuations, and fine structure. Deficiencies in existing simple models of the region are discussed.

The Quiet Solar Transition Region

The Quiet Solar Transition Region

Steady flows in the solar transition region observed with SMM

Steady flows in the quiet solar transition region have been observed with the Ultraviolet Spectrometer and Polarimeter experiment on the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) satellite. The persistent vertical motions seen at disk center have spatial rms amplitudes of 1.4 km/s in the C II line, 3.9 km/s in Si IV, and 4.2 km/s in C IV. The amplitudes of the more horizontal flows seen toward the limb tend to be somewhat higher. Plots of steady vertical velocity versus intensity seen at disk center in Si IV and C IV show two distinct branches.