IRIS Si IV LINE PROFILES: AN INDICATION for the PLASMOID INSTABILITY during SMALL-SCALE MAGNETIC RECONNECTION on the SUN

D. E. Innes, L. J. Guo, Y. M. Huang, A. Bhattacharjee

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

73 Scopus citations

Abstract

Our understanding of the process of fast reconnection has undergone a dramatic change in the last 10 years driven, in part, by the availability of high-resolution numerical simulations that have consistently demonstrated the break-up of current sheets into magnetic islands, with reconnection rates that become independent of Lundquist number, challenging the belief that fast magnetic reconnection in flares proceeds via the Petschek mechanism which invokes pairs of slow-mode shocks connected to a compact diffusion region. The reconnection sites are too small to be resolved with images, but these reconnection mechanisms, Petschek and the plasmoid instability, have reconnection sites with very different density and velocity structures and so can be distinguished by high-resolution line-profile observations. Using IRIS spectroscopic observations we obtain a survey of typical line profiles produced by small-scale events thought to be reconnection sites on the Sun. Slit-jaw images are used to investigate the plasma heating and re-configuration at the sites. A sample of 15 events from 2 active regions is presented. The line profiles are complex with bright cores and broad wings extending to over 300 km s-1. The profiles can be reproduced with the multiple magnetic islands and acceleration sites that characterize the plasmoid instability but not by bi-directional jets that characterize the Petschek mechanism. This result suggests that if these small-scale events are reconnection sites, then fast reconnection proceeds via the plasmoid instability, rather than the Petschek mechanism during small-scale reconnection on the Sun.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number86
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume813
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Nov 10 2015

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

Keywords

  • Sun: UV radiation
  • Sun: activity
  • Sun: transition region
  • magnetic reconnection

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'IRIS Si IV LINE PROFILES: AN INDICATION for the PLASMOID INSTABILITY during SMALL-SCALE MAGNETIC RECONNECTION on the SUN'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this