Russell, A. J. B. | Search NASA

DOE OSTI2016

SUNQUAKE GENERATION BY CORONAL MAGNETIC RESTRUCTURING

Sunquakes are the surface signatures of acoustic waves in the Sun’s interior that are produced by some but not all flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs). This paper explores a mechanism for sunquake generation by the changes in magnetic field that occur during flares and CMEs, using MHD simulations with a semiempirical FAL-C atmosphere to demonstrate the generation of acoustic waves in the interior in response to changing magnetic tilt in the corona. We find that Alfvén–sound resonance combined with the ponderomotive force produces acoustic waves in the interior with sufficient energy to match sunquake observations when the magnetic field angle changes of the order of 10° in a region where the coronal field strength is a few hundred gauss or more. The most energetic sunquakes are produced when the coronal field is strong, while the variation of magnetic field strength with height and the timescale of the change in tilt are of secondary importance.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

DOE OSTI2013

PROPAGATION OF ALFVENIC WAVES FROM CORONA TO CHROMOSPHERE AND CONSEQUENCES FOR SOLAR FLARES

How do magnetohydrodynamic waves travel from the fully ionized corona, into and through the underlying partially ionized chromosphere, and what are the consequences for solar flares? To address these questions, we have developed a two-fluid model (of plasma and neutrals) and used it to perform one-dimensional simulations of Alfven waves in a solar atmosphere with realistic density and temperature structure. Studies of a range of solar features (faculae, plage, penumbra, and umbra) show that energy transmission from corona to chromosphere can exceed 20% of incident energy for wave periods of 1 s or less. Damping of waves in the chromosphere depends strongly on wave frequency: waves with periods 10 s or longer pass through the chromosphere with relatively little damping, however, for periods of 1 s or less, a substantial fraction (37%-100%) of wave energy entering the chromosphere is damped by ion-neutral friction in the mid- and upper chromosphere, with electron resistivity playing some role in the lower chromosphere and in umbras. We therefore conclude that Alfvenic waves with periods of a few seconds or less are capable of heating the chromosphere during solar flares, and speculate that they could also contribute to electron acceleration or exciting sunquakes.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗