Plumes in Solar Coronal Holes: Magnetic Flux Content and Luminosity

On-disc coronal hole plumes, formation and disappearance of which might have implications on heating of coronal loops, have drawn attention from several researchers recently. Raouafi et al. (2014) proposed that plumes form when magnetic reconnection at their footpoints occurs. Other observations, e.g. Wang et al. (2016), have shown that plumes form when magnetic flux at their feet in the photosphere converges and they disappear when the magnetic flux at their feet diverges. In this work, we take a quantitative look at this hypothesis, and find that the luminosity of plumes in 171 Å Fe IX/X emission broadly peaks in step with the plume-base flux content of unipolar magnetic field stronger than 200 Gauss. Flux convergence/divergence seems to help flux grow/decay at the plume base leading to brighter/dimmer intensity in AIA 171 channel.