Z. Švestka

Transequatorial loops interconnecting McMath regions 12472 and 12474

We discuss the life-story of a transequatorial loop system which interconnected the newly born active region McMath 12474 with the old region 12472. The loop system was probably born through reconnection accomplished 1.5 to 5 days after the birth of 12474 and the loops were observed in soft X-rays for at least 1.5 days. Transient ‘sharpenings’ of the interconnection and a striking brightening of the whole loop system for about 6 hr appear to be caused by magnetic field variations in the region 12474. A flare might have been related to the brightening, but only in an indirect way: the same emerging flux could have triggered the flare and at the same time strengthened the magnetic field at the foot-points of the loops. Electron temperature in the loop system, equal to 2.1 × 106 K in its quiet phase, increased to 3.1 × 106 K during the brightening. Electron density in the loop system was ≤ 1.3 × 109 cm−3 and it could be estimated to ∼7 × 108 cm−3 prior to the brightening. During the brightening the loops became twisted. There was no obvious effect whatsoever of the activity in 12474 upon the in erconnected old region. The final decay of the loop system reflected the decay of magnetic field in the region 12474.

Development of a complex of activity in the solar corona

Skylab observations of the Sun in soft X-rays gave us the first possibility to study the development of a complex of activity in the solar corona during its whole lifetime of seven solar rotations. The basic components of the activity complex were permanently interconnected (including across the equator) through sets of magnetic field lines, which suggests similar connections also below the photosphere. However, the visibility of individual loops in these connections was greatly variable and typically shorter than one day. Each brightening of a coronal loop in X-rays seems to be related to a variation in the photospheric magnetic field near its footpoint. Only loops (rarely visible) connecting active regions with remnants of old fields can be seen in about the same shape for many days. The interconnecting X-ray loops do not connect sunspots.We point out several examples of possible reconnections of magnetic field lines, giving rise to the onset of the visibility or, more likely, to sudden enhancements of the loop emission. In one case a new system of loops brightened in X-rays, while the field lines definitely could not have reconnected. Some striking brightenings show association with flares, but the flare occurrence and the loop brightening seem to be two independent consequences of a common triggering action: emergence of new magnetic flux. In old active regions, growing and/or brightened X-ray loops can be seen quite often without any associated flare; thus, the absence of any flaring in the chromosphere does not necessarily mean that the overlying coronal active region is quiet and inactive.We further discuss the birth of the interconnecting loops, their lifetime, altitude, variability in shape in relation to the photospheric magnetic field, the similarity of interconnecting and internal loops in the late stages of active regions, phases of development of an active region as manifested in the corona, the remarkably linear boundary of the X-ray emission after the major flare of 29 July 1973, and a striking sudden change in the large-scale pattern of unipolar fields to the north of the activity complex.The final decay of the complex of activity was accompanied by the penetration of a coronal hole into the region where the complex existed before.

On the occurrence of sympathetic flares

We have tried to determine whether statistical evidence on the occurrence of sympathetic flares, which is negative for whole-disk data, can be found for particular, physically connected, pairs of active regions. Recently, Simnett (1974) and Gergely and Erickson (1975) claimed to have found such evidence, but their results were based on incorrect computations of the random incidence of flares. If the correct formula is applied, the supposed evidence disappears. The results are negative also for pairs of active regions interconnected with magnetic loops visible in soft X-rays during the Skylab mission. The only positive result (with statistical confidence of 3.4 σ) is found for pairs of active regions, which are closer than 30° to each other, without specifying any kind of physical relationship. For such pairs of regions the occurrence of short-time (< 20 min) intervals between flares is increased, but the time interval pattern does not correspond to any mode of propagation of a triggering agent in the solar atmosphere. Therefore, if the increase has real physical significance, it would be indicative of some kind of subphotospheric synchronization of activity in nearby ‘sympathetic’ active regions.

Open magnetic fields in active regions

Soft X-ray observations confirm that some of the dark gaps seen between interconnecting loops and inner cores of active regions may be loci of open fields, as it has been predicted by global potential extrapolation of photospheric magnetic fields. It seems that the field lines may open only in a later state of the active region development.

Study of the post-flare loops on 29 July 1973. IV - Revision of T and n sub e values and comparison with the flare of 21 May 1980

We present revised values of temperature and density for the flare loops of 29 July 1973 and compare the revised parameters with those obtained aboard the SMM for the two-ribbon flare of 21 May 1980. The 21 May flare occurred in a developed sunspot group; the 29 July event was a spotless two-ribbon flare. We find that the loops in the spotless flare extended higher (by a factor of 1.4–2.2), were less dense (by a factor of 5 or more in the first hour of development), were generally hotter, and the whole loop system decayed much slower than in the spotted flare (i.e. staying at higher temperature for a longer time). We also align the hot X-ray loops of the 29 July flare with the bright Hα ribbons and show that the Hα emission is brightest at the places where the spatial density of the hot elementary loops is enhanced.

LOW-ENERGY PARTICLE EVENTS ASSOCIATED WITH SECTOR BOUNDARIES

Onsets of some 40 to 45 low-energy proton events during the years 1957–1969 coincided in time with transits of well-defined sector boundaries across the Earth. These events can be interpreted as long-lived proton streams filling up some of the magnetic sectors, indicating an acceleration of protons which is not associated with typical proton-producing flares. The sharp onsets of these particle streams, as well as a deficiency of flare-associated particle events shortly before the boundary transit, indicate that in some cases magnetic sector boundaries can inhibit transverse propagation of low-energy particles in the solar corona or in interplanetary space.

Do changes in coronal emission structure imply magnetic reconnection

We examine three major possible interpretations of observed reconfigurations of coronal X-ray and XUV emitting structures on a scale comparable to the size of the structures themselves. One possibility is that little change in the large-scale magnetic field configuration is associated with the change in emission. The other two possibilities are processes by which the magnetic field structure can change.We demonstrate that large changes in visibility in X-rays or XUV lines can be associated with relatively minor changes in the coronal magnetic field by showing the behavior of magnetic interconnections between individual active regions in a complex of activity observed by the S-054 X-ray spectrographic telescope on Skylab. While the large-scale interconnections are continuously present for at least several days, individual loops in these structures are visible for only relatively short times (≲1 day).The two theoretical possibilities which we discuss are ‘frozen-in’ motion of the fields, and field line reconnection. We emphasize that reconnection occurs in regions much smaller than telescopic resolution. Because there are no measurements of the magnetic field in the corona in projection against the disk, existing observations are generally not sufficient to show in detail howmuch reconnection has occurred.

The birthplaces of active regions and X-ray bright points

A comparison of soft X-ray pictures of the Sun (S-054 experiment of Skylab) with K-line spectroheliograms (Mount Wilson) shows that the X-ray bright points tend to emerge randomly throughout the Ca network pattern. However, all those bright points that developed into active regions emerged at the boundaries of network cells. This suggests that the magnetic flux of active regions comes from greater depths in the convection zone than the shallow flux that gives rise to the random emergence of bright points.

What should be observed on the sun

Three problems are emphasized in particular: the preflare magnetic field configuration, velocity fields, and the nature of acceleration processes in flares. It is concluded that what we need most urgently are high-resolution hard X-ray, soft X-ray, and EUV-pictures, coronal spectra, and magnetograms with high resolution both in space and time. A space-shuttle equipped with instrumentation of this kind would contribute significantly to our knowledge of the flare process.

Flare-Associated Optical Phenomena

Besides the optical flare proper a large number of various optical phenomena are observed in the solar chromosphere and corona that obviously are related in some way or the other to the flare event. We may divide them into four different types: (a) Activation of filaments (or prominences when seen on the limb) preceding the optical flare. (b) Blast waves originating in the flare and traveling within large solid angles both into the corona as well as along the solar surface, giving rise to winking or disparitions brusques of distant quiescent filaments. (c) Prominence ejections during the flare (surges and sprays). (d) Loop prominences which start developing during the flare and proceed in the corona for hours after the chromospheric phenomenon has faded.