Publication detail

Probing the Density Fine Structuring of the Solar Corona with Comet Lovejoy

NISTICÒ, G. ZIMBARDO, G. PERRI, S. NAKARIAKOV, V. DUCKENFIELD, T. DRUCKMÜLLER, M.

Original Title

Probing the Density Fine Structuring of the Solar Corona with Comet Lovejoy

Type

journal article in Web of Science

Language

English

Original Abstract

The passage of sungrazing comets in the solar corona can be a powerful tool to probe the local plasma properties. Here, we carry out a study of the striae pattern appearing in the tail of sungrazing Comet Lovejoy, as observed by the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) during the inbound and outbound phases of the comet's orbit. We consider the images in EUV in the 171 angstrom bandpass, where emission from oxygen ions O4+ and O5+ is found. The striae are described as due to a beam of ions injected along the local magnetic field, with the initial beam velocity decaying because of collisions. Also, ion collisional diffusion contributes to ion propagation. Both the collision time for velocity decay and the diffusion coefficient for spatial spreading depend on the ambient plasma density. A probabilistic description of the ion beam density along the magnetic field is developed, where the beam position is given by the velocity decay and the spreading of diffusing ions is described by a Gaussian probability distribution. Profiles of emission intensity along the magnetic field are computed and compared with the profiles along the striae observed by AIA, showing a good agreement for most considered striae. The inferred coronal densities are then compared with a hydrostatic model of the solar corona. The results confirm that the coronal density is strongly spatially structured.

Keywords

comet; solar corona; extreme ultraviolet

Authors

NISTICÒ, G.; ZIMBARDO, G.; PERRI, S.; NAKARIAKOV, V.; DUCKENFIELD, T.; DRUCKMÜLLER, M.

Released

1. 10. 2022

Publisher

IOP Publishing

Location

BRISTOL

ISBN

0004-637X

Periodical

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL

Year of study

938

Number

1

State

United States of America

Pages from

20

Pages to

20

Pages count

13

URL

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac8e62

Full text in the Digital Library

http://hdl.handle.net/11012/208672

BibTex

@article{BUT179798,
  author="Giuseppe {Nisticò} and Gaetano {Zimbardo} and Silvia {Perri} and Valery M. {Nakariakov} and Timothy j. {Duckenfield} and Miloslav {Druckmüller}",
  title="Probing the Density Fine Structuring of the Solar Corona with Comet Lovejoy",
  journal="ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL",
  year="2022",
  volume="938",
  number="1",
  pages="13",
  doi="10.3847/1538-4357/ac8e62",
  issn="0004-637X",
  url="https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/ac8e62"
}