hide
Free keywords:
Solar transition region ; Solar chromosphere ; Solar magnetic reconnection ; Solar magnetic fields
Abstract:
The American Astronomical Society, find out more
The American Astronomical Society, find out more
The Institute of Physics, find out more
The Institute of Physics, find out more
Observations and Modeling of the Onset of Fast Reconnection in the Solar Transition Region
L.-J. Guo1,2
, Bart De Pontieu1,3,4, Y.-M. Huang5,6, H. Peter6,7
, and A. Bhattacharjee5,6
Published 2020 October 5 • © 2020. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.
The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 901, Number 2
Download Article PDF DownloadArticle ePub
Figures
References
62 Total downloads
Turn on MathJax
Get permission to re-use this article
Share this article
Share this content via email
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on Google+
Share on Mendeley
Article information
Abstract
Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental plasma process that plays a critical role not only in energy release in the solar atmosphere, but also in fusion, astrophysics, and other space plasma environments. One of the challenges in explaining solar observations in which reconnection is thought to play a critical role is to account for the transition of the dynamics from a slow quasi-continuous phase to a fast and impulsive energetic burst of much shorter duration. Despite the theoretical progress in identifying mechanisms that might lead to rapid onset, a lack of observations of this transition has left models poorly constrained. High-resolution spectroscopic observations from NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph now reveal tell-tale signatures of the abrupt transition of reconnection from a slow phase to a fast, impulsive phase during UV bursts or explosive events in the Sun's atmosphere. Our observations are consistent with numerical simulations of the plasmoid instability, and provide evidence for the onset of fast reconnection mediated by plasmoids and new opportunities for remote-sensing diagnostics of reconnection mechanisms on the Sun.