European Solar Physics Online Seminar Archive

Following an initiative by the University of Oslo the MPS will participate in the "European Solar Physics Online Seminar" series (ESPOS). Details can be found here: https://folk.uio.no/tiago/espos/
The aim of this video conference series is to promote ideas more widely with a specialized audience, and give some exposure to cutting-edge research for students and other young researchers that do not regularly travel to conferences. The ESPOS series is planned to take place every second Thursday at 11am.
Room: https://zoom.us/j/165498165

ESPOS Seminar: MHD wave propagation asymmetric solar waveguides (Noémi Kinga Zsámberger)

ESPOS
The analytical and numerical modelling of the behaviour of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves in various magnetic geometries is a constantly evolving, active area of research within the field of solar magneto-seismology. Here, we present our findings on MHD wave propagation and instabilities in a family of asymmetric Cartesian waveguide models. Thanks to the introduction of various sources of asymmetry (background density, magnetic field or flow speed), this generalisation of classical (symmetric) slab geometries allows us to refine our modelling of several important features in the richly structured solar atmosphere. Including background asymmetry in these configurations influences the phase speeds and cut-off frequencies of the eigenmodes, and, in the case of flow asymmetry, it can also change the threshold for the onset of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. Furthermore, the asymmetric nature of the models allows us to develop solar magneto-seismologic tools and provide efficient methods for obtaining further information about the solar plasma from current and future high-resolution observations of multi-layered waveguides (such as e.g. magnetic bright points or light walls). [more]
Plasmoid-mediated fast magnetic reconnection plays a fundamental role in driving explosive dynamics and heating in the solar atmosphere, but relatively little is known about how it develops in partially ionised plasmas (PIP) of the chromosphere. Partial ionisation can largely alter the dynamics of the coalescence instability, which promotes fast reconnection and forms a turbulent reconnecting current sheet through plasmoid interaction, but it is still unclear to what extent PIP effects influence this process. In this talk, I investigate the role of collisional ionisation and recombination in the development of plasmoid coalescence: I will present 1D and 2.5D simulations of a two-fluid model of a partially ionised plasma (PIP) and show how the dynamics change in the presence and absence of ionisation and recombination processes. The aim is to understand whether these two-fluid coupling processes play a role in accelerating reconnection. In 1D calculations, as the current sheet collapses it drives a burst of ionisation. This results in the current of the current sheet growing at a slower rate than calculations without ionisation and recombination, and in a thicker current sheet. In 2.5D calculations, it is found that, in general, ionisation-recombination process slow down the coalescence. Unlike our previous models that included thermal collisions only, ionisation and recombination stabilise current sheets and suppress non-linear dynamics, with turbulent reconnection occurring in limited cases: bursts of ionisation lead to the formation of thicker current sheets, even when radiative losses are included to cool the system. Therefore, the coalescence time scale is very sensitive to ionisation-recombination processes. [more]
The solar corona temperature is maintained to more than 1 MK. One of the main theories of the coronal formation (Parker 1988) suggests that the energy is dissipated into the corona through a high number of impulsive, low energy (10²⁴ ergs) heating events, called “nanoflares”. On 30 May 2020, during its first high temporal and spatial resolutions observations, 1463 small (400 – 4000 km) and short lived (10-100 s) EUV brightenings were detected in the Quiet Sun by the high resolution UV imager HRI-EUV (174 Å) on board Solar Orbiter. These may be the signatures of nanoflare heating. As HRI-EUV is sensitive to both coronal and transition region emission, our goal is to verify if these brightenings indeed do reach coronal temperatures. As spectroscopic data were not available during the 2020 May observation, we applied the time lag method to the SDO/AIA coronal channels. The objective is to infer the thermal behavior of the events. Our results suggest two possible interpretations: either (1) the events peak below 1 MK, where the AIA response functions behave similarly, or (2) the events cooling time scale is below the AIA cadence of 12s. As spectroscopic observations should be able to clearly distinguish between both cases, we then use cotemporal Quiet Sun observations of Solar Orbiter HRI-EUV and SPICE, coordinated with Hinode/EIS, on 8 and 17 March 2022, and on 4 April 2023. We first detect the events in HRI-EUV, and identify them in SPICE or EIS. Temperature diagnostics using SPICE or EIS data confirm that these events are dominated by plasma below coronal temperatures. We conclude that these small (< 4 Mm) EUV brightenings detected by HRI-EUV are dominated by plasma at chromospheric or transition region temperature. As such, they hardly contribute directly to coronal heating. [more]

ESPOS - DKIST's view of quiet photospheric magnetism and application of neural networks to the characterisation of Stokes profiles (R. Campbell)

ESPOS
A new era of solar physics commences with observations of the quiet Sun using the 4-metre Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope/Visible Spectropolarimeter (DKIST/ViSP). We present full-Stokes observations taken during DKIST’s cycle 1, in the Fe I 630.1/630.2 nm lines, allowing us to examine small-scale magnetism in the photosphere. We use the Stokes Inversion based on Response functions (SIR) code to invert the Fe I line pair. We reveal the existence of a serpentine magnetic element for the first time. A statistical analysis is undertaken, comparing inversions of DKIST data with Hinode data. A novel machine learning technique is used to characterise and contrast the shapes of circular polarisation signals found in the ground-based and space-based data, and synthetic observations produced from MANCHA simulations are used to aid our understanding of the differences between datasets. [more]

ESPOS -Data-driven mode l of temporal evolution of the solar Mg II h and k profiles over the solar cycle (J. Koza)

ESPOS
The solar radiation in the cores of the Mg II h & k spectral lines strongly correlates with solar magnetic activity and global variations of magnetic fields with the solar cycle. This work provides a data-driven model of the temporal evolution of the solar full-disk Mg II h & k profiles over the solar cycle. Based on selected 76 IRIS near-UV full-Sun mosaics covering almost the full solar cycle 24, we find the parameters of double-Gaussian fits of the disk-averaged Mg II h & k profiles and a model of their temporal evolution parameterized by the Bremen composite Mg II index. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo algorithm implemented in the IDL toolkit SoBAT is used in modeling and predicting the temporal evolution of the Mg II h & k peak-to-center intensity ratio and the Bremen Mg II index. The relevant full-disk Mg II h & k calibrated profiles with uncertainties and spectral irradiances are provided as an online machine-readable table. To facilitate the utilization of the model corresponding routines, written in IDL, are made publicly available on GitHub.Co-authors: Stanislav Gunár (The Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic), Pavol Schwartz (Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia), Petr Heinzel (The Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic; University of Wrocław, Poland), Wenjuan Liu (The Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic) [more]

ESPOS - Deciphering solar coronal heating: Energizing small-scale loops through surface convection (D. Nóbrega-Siverio)

ESPOS
The solar atmosphere is filled with clusters of hot small-scale loops commonly known as Coronal Bright Points (CBPs). These ubiquitous structures stand out in the Sun by their strong X-ray and/or extreme ultraviolet (EUV) emission for hours to days, which makes them a crucial piece when solving the solar coronal heating puzzle. Here we present a novel 3D numerical model using the Bifrost code that explains the sustained CBP heating for several hours. We find that stochastic photospheric convective motions alone significantly stress the CBP magnetic field topology, leading to important Joule and viscous heating concentrated around the CBP’s inner spine at a few megameters above the solar surface. We validate our model by comparing simultaneous CBP observations from SDO and SST with observable diagnostics calculated from the numerical results for EUV wavelengths as well as for the Halpha line using the Multi3D synthesis code. Co-authors: Fernando Moreno-Insertis, Klaus Galsgaard, Kilian Krikova, Luc Rouppe van der Voort, Reetika Joshi, and Maria Madjarska [more]

ESPOS - Thoughts on measuring elemental abundances in the solar atmosphere (G. Del Zanna)

ESPOS
I briefly review some methods and measurements of elemental abundances in the solar atmosphere, with emphasis on the transition region and corona. Some limitations in the methods, in the modeling of the spectral line intensities, and the observations are discussed. Examples from the X-rays, the EUV, the UV, the visible, and near-infrared are presented. A significant improvement in the modeling of some of the ions is being made available with CHIANTI version 11. All the observations indicate that the solar corona has photospheric abundances and that the hot 3 MK active region cores have stable enhancements of a factor of about 3.2 in the ratios of low to high-FIP elements. A lot of uncertainties and puzzles still exist, requiring further analyses and, more importantly, future instrumentation. [more]

ESPOS - An overview of last October's SST-SolO observational campaign (S. Danilovic)

ESPOS
We present the results of coordinated observations of the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope with Solar Orbiter that took place from October 12th to 26th 2023. The campaign resulted in 7 datasets of various quality. The observational programs were adjusted to the seeing conditions. The observations cover two active regions and a coronal hole. We focus on the morphology and evolution of several targets that are observed from two vantage points. We share the lessons we learned and give an outline of our plans for October this year and the support we could give during remote sensing windows 16 and 17. [more]

ESPOS - Detection and in-depth analyses of quiet-Sun IRIS Bright Points (Llŷr Dafydd Humphries)

ESPOS
Observations of small-scale brightenings in the low solar atmosphere can provide valuable constraints on possible heating and heat transport mechanisms. We present a method for the detection and analysis of bright points (BPs), and demonstrate its application to time-series imagery of the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) in the extreme ultraviolet. The method is based on spatio-temporal band-pass filtering, adaptive thresholding and centroid tracking, and records an event’s spatial position, duration, speed, total brightness, maximum brightness, and intrinsic brightness. Spatial area, brightness, and position are also recorded as functions of time throughout the event’s lifetime. Detected brightenings can fragment, or merge, over time – thus the number of distinct regions constituting a brightening event is recorded over time, and the maximum number of regions recorded as Nfrag, which is a simple measure of an event’s coherence or spatial complexity. The method is first tested on synthetic data based on Poisson statistics before being applied to real IRIS data. We present statistical characteristics of brightenings from the application of this method to 1330, 1400, and 2796 Å IRIS slit-jaw image time series. Several thousand events are recorded that coexist in all three channels, giving high confidence that they are real. Finally, we will also present continuing applications of this detection method to analyse a large set of BPs and their characteristics – over 12,000 BPs in total – and compare those that are found within ‘Active’ and ‘Quiet’ domains within a QS region, as well as possible future applications of the detection method. [more]

ESPOS -Automatic Identification and Tracking of Sunspots (Charlotte Proverbs)

ESPOS
It is well understood that the dynamics of sunspots lead to energy being transferred to the solar atmosphere and stored in the coronal magnetic field. This provides a surplus of energy that may be released in solar eruptions. The driving mechanisms for this energy transfer may include sunspot rotations, both within individual sunspots and between sunspot pairs. Calculation of the rotations of individual sunspots have been carried out by several authors, but studies of the rotation of sunspot pairs has been less systematically investigated.Calculation of rotations in either case rely on careful tracking of the sunspots from observation to observation. Identification and tracking of sunspots is therefore essential to understanding the energies in play that lead up to solar eruptions. To date, this has predominantly been done manually which has restricted many studies to being a small number of case studies rather than large statistical samples. In order to construct large samples, the careful tracking of sunspots must be automated.We present a fully automatic method to identify and track sunspots in long sequences of data from the Solar Dynamics Observatory Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (SDO/HMI) at a high temporal resolution. This includes registering the splitting and merging of sunspots, and allocating sunspots to active regions. This information can be fed into algorithms to measure the rotation of individual sunspots or used to calculate the relative motion of sunspots with respect to each other (including co-rotation).The method is applied to a four-month data set that has previously been analysed using a semi-automatic method where the basic sunspots were identified by eye, and the results are compared to determine any differences between the methods. From this data, sunspot dynamics such as sunspot rotation, shearing and merging are calculated, alongside sunspot pair interactions. Case studies of successfully tracked sunspots will be presented, showing examples of the individual sunspot rotations and some initial results involving sunspot pair interactions with correlations to solar activity. [more]

ESPOS - Modeling of non-radially propagating halo CMEs and forecasting their arrival time at Earth(Angelos Valentino)

ESPOS
The prediction of geomagnetic storms is becoming more and more important, with the aim to take effective measures for avoiding the possible damage from the extreme events. One of the important parameters when modeling CMEs and CME-driven shocks, is their arrival time at Earth. We present a study of several halo CMEs with the propagation direction which significantly deviated from the Sun-Earth line and as a result, CMEs impacted Earth as flank-encounters. We modeled selected events with the default-setup of EUHFORIA and the Cone model for the CMEs. The aim of our study is to better understand the importance of the CME’s direction of propagation in the input parameters of the Cone model and improve the modeled arrival time at Earth. We selected events that were propagating strongly non-radialy in the low corona, in order to understand how important are the effects of the deflections in the low corona, in the direction of propagation. Our results show that, when the data from the DONKI database are used, the modeled arrival time has the largest discrepancy(≥10h) when compared with observations. When the input parameters are taken employing the GCS fitting technique though, up to the height of 12 Ro (solar radii), the accuracy of the modeled arrival time improves, shifting closer to the observed ones. This result reflects the characteristic that, up to the heights of about 10 Ro, CMEs experience all the low coronal deflections and have taken their final direction of propagation. [more]

ESPOS -Quantifying when and where strong magnetic skew forms in a data-driven global model of the solar corona when limited observational data exist (J. Reid)

ESPOS
Strong magnetic skew characterizes several non-potential structures in the solar corona, including filaments, which can erupt, bringing about major geomagnetic effects. Skew is thus an indicator of the formation of filament channels and a useful property in making forecasts from global coronal models. For skew to be used in this way, its formation and evolution must be identified, with particular consideration of when this occurs within the field of view observable from Earth. Magnetofrictional simulations are performed, with the photospheric boundary condition provided by an observed flux distribution. New techniques are presented for identifying where strong skew forms, and the production and persistence of strong skew in the corona studied systematically. Strong skew is found to form incrementally, in small patches, especially around recently emerged bipolar regions. As such, skew is produced and persists over very long periods of time, comparable with the timescale for solar rotation. Consequently, most skew on the Earth-facing side of the Sun rotates onto it, having formed on the far side, rather than forming within the Earth’s field of view. Therefore, in a data-driven model that is limited to including the emergence of flux observed only from Earth, most of the resultant skew will form after this flux has rotated out of view and onto the far side of the Sun. Given this, it will be important to study how a wider field of view for capturing emergent flux before it rotates into longitudes visible from Earth, afforded by multi-viewpoint observations, would improve our capacity to model and predict Earth-facing phenomena on the Sun, which are important for space weather. Possible effects of multi-viewpoint observations on similar models of the formation of skew are considered. Co-authors: D. H. Mackay, and L. A. Upton [more]

ESPOS: Ca II K brightness as a function of magnetic field strength and characteristics of the observations (M. Murabito)

ESPOS
Solar observations have often served as benchmarks of stellar conditions. A particularly illustrative example of the above link is given by the observations in the Ca II K and H lines at 393.367 nm and 396.847 nm, respectively, which are the two deepest and broadest absorption lines in the visible spectrum of the Sun. Although widely observed over the years, several aspects of the emission of these lines are however still not fully understood. This is the case of e.g. the exact relationship between Ca II K emission and magnetic field strength. To the aim of reassessing this relationship, we analyzed state-of-the-art observations of the solar atmosphere obtained at the Swedish Solar Telescope with the CRisp Imaging SPectropolarimeter and with the CHROMospheric Imaging Spectrometer on regions characterized by a different ambient magnetic field. On these observations we analyzed the dependence of the Ca II K line brightness, as well as the relationship between Ca II K emission and magnetic field strength on different surrounding conditions of the solar atmosphere and characteristics of the observations, such as spectral bandwidth and spatial scale. The data and methods employed, and results achieved by our analysis will be presented, with emphasis on their impact on the interpretation of previous findings in the literature and application in future studies. [more]

ESPOS: Transverse oscillations in coronal loops and photospheric driving: combining high-resolution coronal and photospheric diagnostics together (N. Poirier)

ESPOS
Sustained kink oscillations in coronal loops have long been observed in TRACE, SDO/AIA, and more recently in SolO/EUI images. Although their properties are quite well-known now, their driver and excitation mechanism remain under active debate. In this talk I will give an overview over the different ideas/theories that discuss the role of photospheric driving in the generation of kink oscillations. We exploited an unique dataset of high-resolution coronal and photospheric observations taken recently by SolO/EUI/HRI and the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope (SST) respectively during a dedicated coordinated campaign run in October 2023. Using the SST/CRISP data we estimated and quantified the strength of photospheric driving at the footpoints of active region coronal loops, that include pore, plage, enhanced-network and sunspot regions. We then looked at kink oscillation signatures in the same coronal loops within the EUI/HRI coronal images. An attempt was then made to link the photospheric and coronal results together. I will finally discuss the implications of this work on the driving and excitation mechanism of kink oscillations, and future perspectives. [more]

ESPOS: Spectral analysis of solar filaments using Convolutional-Neural Networks (CNNs) (G. Castelló i Barceló)

ESPOS
Solar filaments (also called prominences when seen off-disk) are solar atmospheric structures consisting of dense, cool plasma clouds floating within the sun's corona. Since the beginning of solar observations, it has been seen that the prominences oscillate with a wide variety of motions. These periodic motions are very common, but there are no systematic studies of these oscillations. It has recently been shown that spectral analysis of solar filaments is a powerful tool to identify oscillations in these structures. With this technique, the power spectral density (PSD) is calculated for each pixel of the Halpha images. To differentiate between a detection or a spurious oscillation, it is necessary to determine the background noise. We have seen that this background noise is a combination of red and white noise. The red-noise nature of the PSD is problematic in their study since most of the statistical tools developed to identify real oscillations from the noise are for white-noise PSD. The most appropriate approach for this problem is the usage of Bayesian statistics and Monte Carlo Markov Chains (MCMC). MCMC methods can be computationally expensive and have been proven to be too slow for our research aims, so we tackle this problem with deep learning techniques, specifically Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs). We developed two neural networks, which reproduce the same outcomes as the MCMC methods. Both have been trained with synthetic data as well as real data from the MCMC methods. The results obtained show negligible differences with the results from the MCMC methods but with the advantage of computing times orders of magnitude smaller. [more]

ESPOS: Solar spectropolarimetric inversions applying Deep Learning techniques (Juan Esteban Agudelo)

ESPOS
Recent advancements in spectropolarimetric instrumentation, such as the new facilities at the GREGOR and DKIST telescopes, have generated vast amounts of data with each observation. This increase in data volume results in longer processing times heightened demands on computational resources, and an expanded carbon footprint, complicating scientific development timelines. The numerical inversion codes used for data analysis, based on radiative transfer models, are inherently complex. Modern projects focused on the solar atmosphere and its magnetic field require additional assumptions, significantly increasing processing times for each pixel. To address this challenge, new methods are being developed, leveraging modern data processing algorithms from statistics and machine learning. We are testing a 1D convolutional neural network model inspired by the 1D parallel atmosphere model of radiative transfer to enhance spectropolarimetric inversions and achieve significant reductions in processing times, as demonstrated in previous studies. Our approach aims to integrate physical constraints into the learning process, allowing the model to not only replicate inversions but also gain insights into the underlying physics. The data for our project was synthesized using state-of-the-art codes for magnetohydrodynamics (MURaM) and radiative transfer under non-local thermodynamic equilibrium (NICOLE). Preliminary results without physical constraints show loss rates approaching 10-3 orders of magnitude and Pearson correlations of the order of 0.8 on average along different optical depths inverted in the process for thermodynamic quantities. [more]

ESPOS: First joint NuSTAR and Solar Orbiter/STIX X-ray observations of solar microflares

ESPOS
Small solar flares, or microflares (GOES B class and fainter), are frequent bursts of energy released in the Sun’s atmosphere, exhibiting heating and particle acceleration similar to that of large flares. X-ray observations provide direct diagnostics to study these processes by examining thermal emission from the hot flare loops and non-thermal emission from accelerated electrons. We present analysis of the X-ray emission from small solar flares jointly observed with the Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) and the Spectrometer Telescope for Imaging X-rays (STIX) on Solar Orbiter, providing different viewing angles of each event. NuSTAR is a highly sensitive X-ray imaging spectrometer that can directly image the Sun from 2.5 keV using focusing optics. STIX is an imaging spectrometer which instead uses indirect optics but has detectors capable of handling a wide range of solar X-ray fluxes from 4 to 150 keV. NuSTAR is in Earth orbit, whereas STIX is orbiting the Sun, so the two instruments combined can give different viewing angles of solar X-ray emission, providing a clearer picture of the flare’s structure. Combining analysis of NuSTAR and STIX’s X-ray spectra, we can take advantage of their different strengths, gaining a better understanding of the energy release in solar flares. We present observations of flares from June 2020 (on-disk for both instruments) and September 2022 (occulted for NuSTAR but on-disk for STIX - allowing us to probe a pre-flare non-thermal coronal source with NuSTAR and bright lower atmosphere flare emission with STIX). [more]
Magnetic reconnection and turbulence are two phenomena that are often invoked to address outstanding open questions as the energy dissipation problem and the heating and acceleration of the solar wind. These two phenomena are closely related to each other in a wide range of plasmas. Turbulent fluctuations can emerge in critical regions of reconnection events, and magnetic reconnection can occur as a product of the turbulent cascade. In this seminar I present some results exploring the interlink between turbulence and reconnection. This talk is divided in two sections, the first one Exploring the Effect of Driving Turbulent-like Fluctuations on a Harris Current Sheet Configuration and the Formation of Plasmoids and the second one Characterising Sub-Grid-Scale Effects on the Ohms Law Terms in Hybrid Simulations of Turbulence at the Earth’s Magnetosheath. The connecting thread is the non-linear and multi-scale nature of turbulence and reconnection as well as the importance of the small-scale dynamics on the large-scale one. In the first study, we perform 2D particle-in-cell simulations of a reconnecting Harris current sheet in the presence of turbulent fluctuations to explore the effect of turbulence on the reconnection process in collisionless non-relativistic pair-plasmas. We find that the presence of a turbulent field can affect the onset and evolution of magnetic reconnection. Moreover, we observe the existence of a scale dependent amplitude of magnetic field fluctuations above which these fluctuations can disrupt the growing of magnetic islands. These fluctuations provide thermal energy to the particles within the current sheet and preferential perpendicular thermal energy to the background population. In our second study we address the challenge that poses the modelling of large-scale systems while accounting for the small-scale phenomena by characterising the contribution of the small-scale dynamic terms on the generalized Ohms law in Vlasov-Hybrid simulations of turbulence in Earth’s magnetosheath. This with the aim of providing insight on Sub-Grid-Scale models that can be incorporated in Large Eddy Simulations. Our results are highly relevant to the future modelling of large-scale turbulent plasmas such as magnetospheres, the solar wind, the solar atmosphere, and other astrophysical systems. [more]

ESPOS: Sun-as-a-star flare observations with HARPS-N and SST (Alex Pietrow)

ESPOS
Stellar flares cannot be spatially resolved, which means that we have to extract complex three-dimensional behavior from a one-dimensional disk-integrated spectrum. Due to their proximity to Earth, solar flares can serve as a stepping stone for understanding their stellar counterparts, especially when using a Sun-as-a-star instrument in combination with spatially resolved observations. In this talk I will discuss a confined X2.2 flare and its eruptive X9.3 successor as measured by the HARPS-N Sun-as-a-star telescope. The behavior of multiple photospheric and chromospheric spectral lines are investigated by means of activity indices and contrast profiles, which are then related to physical processes directly observed in high-resolution observations made with the Swedish 1-meter Solar Telescope (SST). We further explore these relations by using the newly developed Numerical Sun-as-a-Star Integrator (NESSI) code to convert high-resolution SST flares to full disk spectra. Our findings suggest a relationship between the evolving shapes of the disk integrated spectra and the flare locations on the solar disk, which could be act as a guide for constraining flare locations in stellar spectra. [more]

ESPOS: Three dimensional magnetic reconnection: Theory and observations (Jaroslav Dudík)

ESPOS
In the recent decades, three-dimensional modelling of solar flares and eruptions has made a number of predictions that were subsequently indicated by high-resolution imaging observations. These include existence of magnetic reconnection geometries involving the erupting flux rope itself, which drifts as a result, and also the apparent slipping and slip-running motion of footpoints of individual reconnecting structures. In this talk, we will summarize the predictions of the MHD models as well as the corroborating evidence, with particular emphasis on recent observations of super-Alfvénic slippage of flare kernels. [more]

ESPOS: How BRADPIT could help us in flare forecasting through small AR activity monitoring (Augustin André-Hoffmann)

ESPOS
The Sun is a dynamic star, displaying activities ranging from subtle, short-lived events to major coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and powerful flares. Differentiating between “flaring” and “non-flaring” active region (AR) configurations is critical for heliophysics research. This study investigates whether small to medium-scale activity in ARs holds clues about their eruptive potential and future behaviour. Using data from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) and the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) onboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), we analyse transient brightenings and their relationship to the magnetic polarity inversion line (PIL) in ARs. We observe significant differences between pre-flaring and non-flaring ARs in terms of the spatial distribution and temporal evolution of transient brightenings around the PIL. Key parameters include the number, intensity, and magnetic flux of brightenings over time, as well as their behaviour across multiple wavelengths. These variations offer insights into the Sun’s atmospheric dynamics and the mechanisms driving major flares and – in case of coronal mass ejections – eruptions. By understanding the pre-eruptive activity in ARs, we aim to improve solar event prediction capabilities and advance our knowledge of the relevant dynamics. [more]

ESPOS: Two Distinct Eruptive Events Observed by Metis on October 28, 2021 (Yara de Leo)

ESPOS
On October 28, 2021 the first X-class solar flare of Solar Cycle 25 occurred in active region NOAA AR 12887 with a peak at 15:35 UT. It produced the rare event of ground-level enhancement of the solar relativistic proton flux and a global extreme ultraviolet wave, along with a fast halo coronal mass ejection (CME) as seen from Earth’s perspective. A few hours before the flare, a slower CME had erupted from a quiet Sun region just behind the northwestern solar limb. Solar Orbiter was almost aligned with the Sun-Earth line and, during a synoptic campaign, its coronagraph Metis detected the two CME events in both Visible Light (VL) and UltraViolet (UV) channels. The earlier CME took place in the north-west (NW) sector of Metis field of view, while several bright features of the flare-related event appeared mostly to the south-east (SE). The NW and SE events have two distinct origins, but were both characterized by a very bright emission in HI Ly-alpha visible in the UV images of Metis up to 8 solar radii. This work is a follow-up study of two out of the six events analyzed by Russano et al. 2024 (A&A, 683, A191), aimed at investigating the evolution of these two almost co-temporal CMEs but originating in such distinct source regions. To that end, we extensively inspect data sets from numerous remote-sensing instruments observing the Sun in several spatial and spectral regimes. We characterize several aspects of these CMEs, including their three-dimensional properties, kinematics, mass, and temporal evolution of those quantities. Results of this work point to notable differences between these two events showing significant UV emission in the corona. Co-authors: H. Cremades, F. A. Iglesias, L. Teriaca, R. Aznar Cuadrado, F. M. López, L. Di Lorenzo, M. Temmer, M. Romoli, D. Spadaro, and the Metis Team [more]
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