The Solar Chromosphere at Millimeter Wavelengths

Physics

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

The solar chromosphere remains the least understood layer of the solar atmosphere. There is yet no answer to the question concerning its structure. Is it better described by the classical picture of a steady temperature rise as a function of height, with superposed weak oscillations, or does the temperature keep dropping outwards, with hot shocks producing strong localized heating? Observations in the UV and the IR give contrasting results, since they only sample either the hot or the cool parts of the chromosphere. Computations carried out with sophisticated dynamic models of the solar chromosphere demonstrate that millimeter emission is extremely sensitive to dynamic processes in the chromosphere and the appropriate wavelengths to look for dynamic signatures are in the range 0.8-5.0 mm. The models also suggest that high resolution observations at mm wavelengths have the unique property of reacting to both the hot and the cool gas, and thus have the potential of distinguishing between models.
In this contribution we use high-resolution millimeter-interferometer observations, obtained with the Berkeley-Illinois-Maryland Array at 3.5 mm (resolution of 12 arcsec), as a diagnostic tool to study the thermal structure of the solar chromosphere and its response to dynamic processes.
Our initial results obtained from the observations of the quiet Sun reveal brightness features corresponding to supergranular network boundaries and bright points within the cells. We found significant intensity oscillations with frequencies of 1.5-8 mHz with a tendency toward short-period oscillations in internetwork and longer periods in network regions. However higher spatial resolution is required for a clean separation between the brightness features and for an adequate comparison with the output of the comprehensive dynamic simulations.

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