Speaker
Description
First Name: Abhas
Last Name: Pradhan
Affiliation: Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research
All Authors: A. Pradhan , L. P. Chitta , H. Peter
Abstract: Coronal bright points (CBPs) are compact million degree features typically observed in the quiet-Sun corona. As for the other coronal features, the mechanisms that heat CBPs remain unclear. Small-scale reconnection events such as nanoflares are strong candidates, but past observations have lacked the resolution needed to identify their signatures. With Solar Orbiter’s Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), we now obtain unprecedented EUV observations of CBPs with a plate scale of ~100 km per pixel and ~3 s cadence over extended intervals. These data reveal rapidly varying (~30 s) transient brightenings within CBP loops. Many transients propagate along the loops, often from the apex toward the footpoints, while others, typically close to the footpoints, appear as short-lived stationary brightenings. The high-resolution EUI observations also reveal that these events often follow the interaction of multiple coronal strands. We interpret the moving transients as the response to localized coronal heating episodes caused by small-scale magnetic reconnection.