Abstract
Sequential chromospheric brightenings (SCBs) are often observed in the immediate vicinity of erupting flares and are associated with coronal mass ejections. Since their initial discovery in 2005, there have been several subsequent investigations of SCBs. These studies have used differing detection and analysis techniques, making it difficult to compare results between studies. This work employs the automated detection algorithm of Kirk et al. (Solar Phys. 283, 97, 2013) to extract the physical characteristics of SCBs in 11 flares of varying size and intensity. We demonstrate that the magnetic substructure within the SCB appears to have a significantly smaller area than the corresponding \(\mbox{H}\upalpha\) emission. We conclude that SCBs originate in the lower corona around \(0.1~R_{\odot}\) above the photosphere, propagate away from the flare center at speeds of \(35\,\mbox{--}\,85~\mbox{km}\,\mbox{s}^{-1}\), and have peak photosphere magnetic intensities of \(148\pm2.9~\mbox{G}\). In light of these measurements, we infer SCBs to be distinctive chromospheric signatures of erupting coronal mass ejections.
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Notes
A kernel “radius” is more accurately a “radius of gyration” and is calculated by finding the mean intensity-weighted radius from each pixel to the kernel axis of rotation. See Crocker (1996) for further details.
DeRosa’s PFSS modeling software package is currently available at www.lmsal.com/~derosa/pfsspack/ .
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to recognize i) the USAF/AFRL Space Scholar Program, ii) NSO/AURA for the use of their Sunspot, NM facilities, iii) AFRL/RVBXS, iv) NMSU, and v) the referee for the insightful comments about this work. MSK was supported by an appointment to the NASA Postdoctoral Program at the Goddard Space Flight Center, administered by Universities Space Research Association through a contract with NASA. KSB was supported by an AFOSR Task: “Physics of Coupled Flares and CME Systems.”
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Kirk, M.S., Balasubramaniam, K.S., Jackiewicz, J. et al. The Origin of Sequential Chromospheric Brightenings. Sol Phys 292, 72 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-017-1094-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11207-017-1094-3