Development of a global model of the solar atmosphere with an emphasis on the solar transition region

Details Development of a global model of the solar atmosphere with an emphasis on the solar transition region Development of a global model of the solar atmosphere with an emphasis on the solar transition region

Nov 2000

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2000phdt........68o&link_type=abstract

ProQuest Dissertations And Theses; Thesis (Ph.D.)--Stanford University, 2000.; Publication Number: AAT9995270; ISBN: 97804930311

Mathematics

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This thesis incorporates an experimental, phenomenological, and theoretical study of the morphology, dynamics and energy balance of the plasma structures that comprise the solar atmosphere. My goal is to derive a global model of the solar atmosphere from chromospheric temperatures at the temperature minimum (Te ˜ 4500 K), to coronal temperatures (Te ≥ 1,000,000 K). This goal has eluded solar astrophysicist for several decades and today continues to be a nagging problem due to the difficulty in incorporating the solar transition region (20,000 K < Te < 1,000,000 K) into the simple atmospheric models that have been derived. The approach I use differs from that of my predecessors in that I comprehensively study the individual plasma structures that comprise the solar atmosphere rather than attempting to derive a global model that assumes a spherically symmetric layered atmosphere. The experimental program includes the development of a unique space-based platform for observing the solar atmosphere, the Multi-Spectral Solar Telescope Army (MSSTA). In three rocket flights covering the period from 1987 to 1994 the telescope systems onboard the MSSTA obtained several full disk solar images in narrow bandpasses centered on strong soft X-Ray, EUV, and FUV emission lines. Using these observations I model polar plumes and calculate their energy balance revealing their relationship to the solar wind and their lower transition region and magnetic structures. I have discovered that the upper transition region is primarily comprised of a distribution of small loops (full length ≤15 ″; 1″ cross-sections), with peak temperatures between 500,000 K and 900,000 K. These loops, coined "lukewarm loops," are shown to be perhaps the most abundant structure in the solar atmosphere. Theoretical study of the lukewarm loops reveal that their existence may resolve several long-standing questions regarding the solar atmosphere including the role of conduction in the global energy balance, the apparent absence of coronal holes at lower transition temperatures, the nature of spicules, and the pervasive redshifts of spectral lines formed in the transition region. Finally, I show the relationship between the various thermal levels of the solar atmosphere and present a global model consistent with all observations.

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