2009/09/11 by L. Rouppe van der Voort, J. Leenaarts, B. de Pontieu +2 · 9 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Doppler effect #Line (geometry) #Plasma #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #Solar prominence #Solar telescope #Spectral line #Sponge spicule #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #Telescope #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/705/1/272
published as Astrophys.J.705:272-284,2009 · Accepted for publication in Astrophysical Journal. See http://www.astro.uio.no/~rouppe/rbe/ for better resolution figures and movies
arxiv created 2009/09/11 · openalex publication_date 2009/10/09 · arxiv updated 2014/11/20 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Recently, a second type of spicules was discovered at the solar limb with the Solar Optical Telescope onboard the Japanese Hinode spacecraft. These previously unrecognized type II spicules are thin chromospheric jets that are shorter lived (10–60 s) and that show much higher apparent upward velocities (of order 50–100 km s −1 ) than the classical spicules. Since they have been implicated in providing hot plasma to coronal loops, their formation, evolution, and properties are important ingredients for a better understanding of the mass and energy balance of the low solar atmosphere. Here, we report on the discovery of the disk counterparts of type II spicules using spectral imaging data in the Ca ii 854.2 nm and Hα lines with the CRisp Imaging SpectroPolarimeter at the Swedish Solar Telescope in La Palma. We find rapid blueward excursions in the line profiles of both chromospheric lines that correspond to thin, jet-like features that show apparent velocities of order 50 km s −1 . These blueward excursions seem to form a separate absorbing component with Doppler shifts of order 20 and 50 km s −1 for the Ca ii 854.2 nm and Hα line, respectively. We show that the appearance, lifetimes, longitudinal and transverse velocities, and occurrence rate of these rapid blue excursions on the disk are very similar to those of the type II spicules at the limb. A detailed study of the spectral line profiles in these events suggests that plasma is accelerated along the jet, and plasma is being heated throughout the short lifetime of the event.