AN INVESTIGATION OF TIME LAG MAPS USING THREE-DIMENSIONAL SIMULATIONS OF HIGHLY STRATIFIED HEATING
- NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, ZP 13, Huntsville, AL 35812 (United States)
- Predictive Science, Inc., 9990 Mesa Rim Rd., Ste. 170, San Diego, CA 92121-2910 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697 (United States)
The location and frequency of coronal energy release provide a significant constraint on the coronal heating mechanism. The evolution of the intensity observed in coronal structures found from time lag analysis of Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) data has been used to argue that heating must occur sporadically. Recently, we have demonstrated that quasi-steady, highly stratified (footpoint) heating can produce results qualitatively consistent with the evolution of observed coronal structures. The goals of this paper are to demonstrate that time lag analysis of 3D simulations of footpoint heating are qualitatively consistent with time lag analysis of observations and to use the 3D simulations to further understand whether time lag analysis is a useful tool in defining the evolution of coronal structures. We find the time lag maps generated from simulated data are consistent with the observed time lag maps. We next investigate several example points. In some cases, the calculated time lag reflects the evolution of a unique loop along the line of sight, though there may be additional evolving structures along the line of sight. We confirm that using the multi-peak AIA channels can produce time lags that are difficult to interpret. We suggest using a different high temperature channel, such as an X-ray channel. Finally, we find that multiple evolving structures along the line of sight can produce time lags that do not represent the physical properties of any structure along the line of sight, although the cross-correlation coefficient of the lightcurves is high. Considering the projected geometry of the loops may reduce some of the line-of-sight confusion.
- OSTI ID:
- 22667220
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 831, Issue 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
OBSERVATIONS AND MODELING OF THE EMERGING EXTREME-ULTRAVIOLET LOOPS IN THE QUIET SUN AS SEEN WITH THE SOLAR DYNAMICS OBSERVATORY
THE TRANSITION REGION RESPONSE TO A CORONAL NANOFLARE: FORWARD MODELING AND OBSERVATIONS IN SDO/AIA