Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society (천문학회지)

The Korean Astronomical Society (한국천문학회)
권호 표지

DYNAMICAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE QUIET TRANSITION REGION: SPATIAL CORRELATION STUDIES OF H I 931 AND S VI 933 UV LINES

  • YUN HONG SIK (Department of Astronomy, Seoul National University) ;
  • CHAE JONG CHUL (Big Bear Solar Obervatory, New Jersey Institute of Technology) ;
  • POLAND A. I. (Laboratory for Astronomy and Solar Physics, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center)
  • Published : 1998.04.01
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Abstract

To understand the basic physics underlying large spatial fluctuations of intensity and Doppler shift, we have investigated the dynamical charctersitics of the transition region of the quiet sun by analyzing a raster scan of high resolution UV spectral band containing H Lyman lines and a S VI line. The spectra were taken from a quiet area of $100'\times100'$ located near the disk center by SUMER on board SOHO. The spectral band ranges from 906 A to 950 A with spatial and spectral resolution of 1v and $0.044 {\AA}$, respectively. The parameters of individual spectral lines were determined from a single Gaussian fit to each spectral line. Then, spatial correlation analyses have been made among the line parameters. Important findings emerged from the present analysis are as follows. (1) The integrated intensity maps of the observed area of H I 931 line $(1\times10^4 K)$ and S VI 933 line $(2\times10^5 K)$ look very smilar to each other with the same characterstic size of 5". An important difference, however, is that the intensity ratio of brighter network regions to darker cell regions is much larger in S VI 933 line than that in H I 931 line. (2) Dynamical features represented by Doppler shifts and line widths are smaller than those features seen in intensity maps. The features are found to be changing rapidly with time within a time scale shorter than the integration time, 110 seconds, while the intensity structure remains nearly unchanged during the same time interval. (3) The line intensity of S VI is quite strongly correlated with that of H I lines, but the Doppler shift correlation between the two lines is not as strong as the intensity correlation. The correlation length of the intensity structure is found to be about 5.7' (4100 km), which is at least 3 times larger than that of the velocity structure. These findings support the notion that the basic unit of the transition region of the quiet sun is a loop-like structure with a size of a few $10^3 km$, within which a number of unresolved smaller velocity structures are present.

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