Thursday, June 21, 2012

1206.4347 (Rohan E. Louis et al.)

Observations of Supersonic Downflows in a Sunspot Light Bridge as Revealed by Hinode    [PDF]

Rohan E. Louis, Luis R. Bellot Rubio, Shibu K. Mathew, P. Venkatakrishnan
Recent high resolution spectropolarimetric observations from Hinode detected the presence of supersonic downflows in a sunspot light bridge (Louis et al. 2009). These downflows occurred in localized patches, close to regions where the field azimuth changed by a large value. This apparent discontinuity in the field azimuth was seen along a thin ridge running along the western edge of the light bridge. Some, but not all, of these downflowing patches were co-spatial with chromospheric brightness enhancements seen in Ca II H filtergrams. The presence of magnetic inhomogeneities at scales of 0.3 arcsec could facilitate the reconnection of field lines in the lower chromosphere whose signatures might be the supersonic downflows and the brightness enhancements that have been observed.
View original: http://arxiv.org/abs/1206.4347

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