Creating a Method for Studying Dynamics of Small-Scale Magnetic Fields to Locate Type II Spicules for Study.

The solar corona is the key to understanding the processes behind solar wind: the phenomenon that can create space weather storms which can disrupt the near-Earth environment, satellites, and communication systems. The corona's temperature is thousands of times hotter than the photosphere, and it is known that hot plasma enters the corona via sporadic bursts from the solar chromosphere. Type II Spicules, fast-evolving, fine-scale plasma jet-like structures located in the chromosphere, are currently being researched as a potential link to the phenomenon of coronal heating. Type II Spicules have a lifetime of 1 to 12 minutes, creating a difficulty in studying their fast nature. These jets occur in dynamic locations of the sun, which are areas where magnetic field lines change connectivity often.

The goal of this project is to create a method to determine the most dynamic portions of the photosphere to track the best locations of the chromosphere to study Type II Spicules. Solar magnetograms were used from the Near-InfraRed Imaging Spectro-polarimeter (NIRIS) operating on the Goode Solar Telescope (GST) at NJIT's Big Bear Solar Observatory. Since the most dynamic locations of the photosphere are areas of high magnetic activity, field line connectivity changes were tracked by using 27 NIRIS magnetograms. A method was created to track the magnetic field line connectivity changes by determining if each line changed its length, changed from an open line to a closed loop, or a closed loop to an open line. Plots were able to be derived from the data, showing the most dynamic portions, or where the field lines evolved the most (See image; Color-coded lines: length change (green), open line to closed loop (blue), closed loop to open line (red)).

The code was tested for data stability through time varied net-magnetic flux calculations, the amount of magnetic field that passed through multiple dynamic regions as well as a control. Preliminary testing of tracking these dynamic areas into the chromosphere yielded promising results, with further analysis needed to determine the legitimacy of the method in locating the likely areas of Type II Spicule activity. The further development of this method will support the research and understanding of Type II Spicules and coronal heating.