Studying Magnetic Reconnection through Explosive Events in the Sun

Hannah Alpert

Explosive Events in Transition Region

• Transition region: Sun’s atmosphere between the chromosphere and the corona– 20,000–250,000 K

• EEs: spontaneous energy release, detected by broadening of spectral lines

Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) Data

Raster•Spectral data

SJI•Image of Sun

Identifying Explosive Events

Making Movies!

Classifying the EEs

• Spectrum– Red– Blue– Both– Alternating– Sheared

• Morphology– Compact– Loop– Footpoint– Complicated

Loop:

Compact:

Red:

Sheared:

Classifying the EEs: ExamplesSpectral Examples Morphology Examples

Plotting the Spectra (Si IV)

Velocity (km/s)

Analyzing the Data: Asymmetry

Red and blue quartiles for each of the 82 EEs from 2014-04-15

Analyzing the Data: Velocity and Classifications

Velocities of EEs from 2014-04-15

Comparing EE TypesAlternating events overplotted on entire data sets from 2014-04-15 and 16

Comparing EE TypesCompact events overplotted on entire data sets from 2014-04-15 and 16

Cumulative HistogramsEntire data sets from 2014-04-15 and 16

Issues and Future Work

• Analyze the histograms• Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test to compare

different EE types• More data!!• Examine complicated EEs (velocities, time

scales, spatial scales)• Relationship to magnetic fields and

reconnection