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Probing the density fine structuring of the solar corona with comet Lovejoy
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Nistico, G., Zimbardo, G., Perri, S., Nakariakov, V. M., Duckenfield, T. J. and Druckmuller, M. (2022) Probing the density fine structuring of the solar corona with comet Lovejoy. Astrophysical Journal, 938 (1). 20. doi:10.3847/1538-4357/ac8e62 ISSN 0004-637X.
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WRAP-Probing-density-fine-structuring-solar-corona-comet-Lovejoy-22.pdf - Published Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download (2162Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ac8e62
Abstract
The passage of sungrazing comets in the solar corona can be a powerful tool to probe the local plasma properties. Here, we carry out a study of the striae pattern appearing in the tail of sungrazing Comet Lovejoy, as observed by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) during the inbound and outbound phases of the comet’s orbit. We consider the images in EUV in the 171 Å bandpass, where emission from oxygen ions O4+ and O5+ is found. The striae are described as due to a beam of ions injected along the local magnetic field, with the initial beam velocity decaying because of collisions. Also, ion collisional diffusion contributes to ion propagation. Both the collision time for velocity decay and the diffusion coefficient for spatial spreading depend on the ambient plasma density. A probabilistic description of the ion beam density along the magnetic field is developed, where the beam position is given by the velocity decay and the spreading of diffusing ions is described by a Gaussian probability distribution. Profiles of emission intensity along the magnetic field are computed and compared with the profiles along the striae observed by AIA, showing a good agreement for most considered striae. The inferred coronal densities are then compared with a hydrostatic model of the solar corona. The results confirm that the coronal density is strongly spatially structured.
| Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||||||
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| Subjects: | Q Science > QB Astronomy | ||||||||||||
| Divisions: | Faculty of Science, Engineering and Medicine > Science > Physics | ||||||||||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Sun -- Corona , Solar magnetic fields , Stellar activity | ||||||||||||
| Journal or Publication Title: | Astrophysical Journal | ||||||||||||
| Publisher: | IOP Publishing | ||||||||||||
| ISSN: | 0004-637X | ||||||||||||
| Official Date: | 11 October 2022 | ||||||||||||
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| Volume: | 938 | ||||||||||||
| Number: | 1 | ||||||||||||
| Article Number: | 20 | ||||||||||||
| DOI: | 10.3847/1538-4357/ac8e62 | ||||||||||||
| Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||||||
| Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||||||
| Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||||||
| Date of first compliant deposit: | 1 November 2022 | ||||||||||||
| Date of first compliant Open Access: | 1 November 2022 | ||||||||||||
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