Identification

Title

Spectropolarimetric insight into plasma sheet dynamics of a solar flare

Abstract

We examine spectropolarimetric data from the Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (CoMP) instrument, acquired during the evolution of the 2017 September 10 X8.2 solar flare on the western solar limb. CoMP captured linearly polarized light from two emission lines of Fe XIII at 1074.7 and 1079.8 nm, from 1.03 to 1.5 solar radii. We focus here on the hot plasma sheet lying above the bright flare loops and beneath the ejected coronal mass ejection. The polarization has a striking and coherent spatial structure, with unexpectedly small polarization aligned with the plasma sheet. By elimination, we find that small-scale magnetic field structure is needed to cause such significant depolarization, and suggest that plasmoid formation during reconnection (associated with the tearing-mode instability) creates magnetic structure on scales below instrument resolution of 6 Mm. We conclude that polarization measurements with new coronagraphs, such as the upcoming Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, will further enhance our understanding of magnetic reconnection and development of turbulence in the solar corona.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7k077g7

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2019-12-20T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact