RESOLVING THE FAN-SPINE RECONNECTION GEOMETRY OF A SMALL-SCALE CHROMOSPHERIC JET EVENT WITH THE NEW SOLAR TELESCOPE

Journal Article · Tue Mar 01 00:00:00 EST 2016 · Astrophysical Journal Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8205/819/1/L3· OSTI ID:22518606

Zeng, Zhicheng; Chen, Bin; Goode, Philip R.; Cao, Wenda ^[1]; Ji, Haisheng ^[2]

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1. Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research, New Jersey Institute of Technology, 323 Martin Luther King Boulevard, Newark, NJ 07102 (United States)
2. Big Bear Solar Observatory, 40386 North Shore Lane, Big Bear City, CA 92314 (United States)

Jets are ubiquitously present in both quiet and active regions on the Sun. They are widely believed to be driven by magnetic reconnection. A fan-spine structure has been frequently reported in some coronal jets and flares, and has been regarded as a signature of ongoing magnetic reconnection in a topology consisting of a magnetic null connected by a fan-like separatrix surface and a spine. However, for small-scale chromospheric jets, clear evidence of such structures is rather rare, although it has been implied in earlier works that showed an inverted-Y-shaped feature. Here we report high-resolution (0.″16) observations of a small-scale chromospheric jet obtained by the New Solar Telescope (NST) using 10830 Å filtergrams. Bi-directional flows were observed across the separatrix regions in the 10830 Å images, suggesting that the jet was produced due to magnetic reconnection. At the base of the jet, a fan-spine structure was clearly resolved by the NST, including the spine and the fan-like surface, as well as the loops before and after the reconnection. A major part of this fan-spine structure, with the exception of its bright footpoints and part of the base arc, was invisible in the extreme ultraviolet and soft X-ray images (observed by the Atmosphere Imaging Assembly and the X-Ray Telescope, respectively), indicating that the reconnection occurred in the upper chromosphere. Our observations suggest that the evolution of this chromospheric jet is consistent with a two-step reconnection scenario proposed by Török et al.

• OSTI ID: 22518606
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal Letters, Vol. 819, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 2041-8205
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTROPHYSICS
COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY
CHROMOSPHERE
EXTREME ULTRAVIOLET RADIATION
IMAGES
JETS
MAGNETIC RECONNECTION
RESOLUTION
SOFT X RADIATION
SOLAR ACTIVITY
SOLAR CORONA
SUN
SURFACES
TELESCOPES