• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.48 no.3
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• pp.187-190
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• 2015

Data analysis and theoretical arguments support magnetic reconnection in a chromospheric current sheet as the mechanism of the observed photospheric magnetic flux cancellation on the Sun. Flux pile-up reconnection in a Sweet–Parker current sheet can explain the observed properties of canceling magnetic features, including the speeds of canceling magnetic fragments, the magnetic fluxes in the fragments, and the flux cancellation rates, inferred from the data. It is discussed how more realistic chromospheric reconnection models can be developed by relaxing the assumptions of a negligible current sheet curvature and a constant height of the reconnection site above the photosphere.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.35 no.1
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• pp.59-65
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• 2002

Solar observations support that magnetic reconnect ion ubiquitously occurs in the chromosphere as well as in the corona. It is now widely accepted that coronal magnetic reconnect ion is fast reconnect ion of the Petschek type, and is the main driver of solar flares. On the other hand, it has been thought that the traditional Sweet-Parker model may describe chromospheric reconnect ion without difficulty, since the electric conductivity in the chromoshphere is much lower than that in the corona. However, recent observations of cancelling magnetic features have suggested that chromospheric reconnect ion might proceed at a faster rate than the Sweet-Parker model predicts. We have applied the Sweet-Parker model and Petschek model to a well-observed cancelling magnetic feature. As a result, we found that the inflow speed of the Sweet-Parker reconnect ion is too small to explain the observed converging speed of the feature. On the other hand, the inflow speeds and outflow speeds of the Petschek reconnect ion are well compatible with observations. Moreover, we found that the Sweet-Parker type current sheet is subject to the ion-acoustic instability in the chromosphere, implying the Petschek mechanism may operate there. Our results strongly suggest that chromospheric reconnect ion is of the Petschek type.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.44 no.2
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• pp.40.3-40.3
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• 2019

Our recent observations of the Sun through strong spectral lines have revealed several important properties of the three-minute umbral oscillations inside sunspots -- the oscillations of intensity and Doppler velocity with periods of 2 to 3 minutes. The oscillations usually occur in the form of a time series of oscillation packets each of which lasts 10 to 20 minutes, not as continuous trains. Each oscillation packet is characterized by a singly peaked power spectrum of velocity oscillation. The oscillations propagate in the vertical direction from the photosphere to the corona. In the upper chromosphere, they develop into shocks that eventually collide with the transition region. When shocks propagate along a highly inclined direction, the merging of two successive shocks can take place. Once they enter the corona, they change to linear compressional waves. In the image plane, the three-minute oscillations propagate with high speeds in the transverse direction as well, usually propagating radially outwards from a point, and sometimes accompanying spiraling patterns of Doppler velocity. These observational properties can be theoretically explained by postulating the spatio-temporally localized source of fast MHD waves at a depth of about 2000 km below the surface, the excitation of slow MHD waves via mode conversion near the photosphere, and the resonance of the slow waves in the photospheric layer below the temperature minimum, and the nonlinear development of slow waves in the chromosphere.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.36 no.2
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• pp.96.2-96.2
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• 2011

We analyzed transient Ca II brightening associated with small-scale canceling magnetic features in the quiet Sun near disk center using Ca II H and NaD1 filter images of the SOT/Hinode. We found that in most Ca II brightening related to CMFs the Ca II intensity peaks after magnetic flux cancellation proceeds. Moreover, brightening tend to appear as pairs of bright points of similar size and similar brightness overlying magnetic bipoles. These results imply that magnetic reconnection taking place in the chromosphere or above may be in charge of CMFs.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.47 no.6
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• pp.311-317
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• 2014

Solar chromospheric surges are often reported to contain rotational motion. However, the details of the motion and driving mechanism of the surges are not yet fully understood. Recurrent surges with rotational motion at AR 10930 on the west limb are observed by Hinode Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) continuously from 11:21 UT on December 18 to 09:58 UT on December 19, 2006, using the $Ca_{II}$ H broadband filter. We analyze details of the motion including number of turns from the rise of the surge to the fall, axial speed and acceleration. During the observation, rise and fall motion accompanying rotation appears recurrently. There occur a total of 14 surges at AR 10930 over 17 hours. The average duration is 45 minutes, and the average width, and length are 8 Mm, and 39 Mm, respectively. We speculate that the surges occurred by recurrent reconnections between the twisted prominence and large untwisted flux tube.

• Publications of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.30 no.2
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• pp.59-60
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• 2015

High resolution, multi-wavelength images from the Dutch Open Telescope were used to study the detailed mechanisms that might be involved in the multiple layer solar atmosphere observed in high cadence multi-wavelength observations. With the exceptional data observed for active region NOAA 10789 on 2005 July 13th, we study the changing pattern of the fibril using multi-wavelength tomography of the $H{\alpha}$ line center and blue wing, Ca II H, and the G Band. It is believed that a long fibril that is rooted in the umbra, with longer apparent periodicity, may be due to morphological changes. To determine this, we conduct phase difference and coherency analysis between points along the fibril to understand how the wave propagates.

• The Bulletin of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.2
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• pp.67.3-68
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• 2016

An X1.6 flare occurred in AR 12192 on 2014 October 22 around 14:06 UT and was observed by Hinode, IRIS, SDO and RHESSI. We analyze a bright kernel which produces a white light flare (WLF) with continuum enhancement and a hard X-ray (HXR) peak. Taking advantage of the spectroscopic observations of IRIS and EIS, we measure the temporal variation of the plasma properties in the bright kernel in the chromosphere and corona. We found that explosive evaporation was observed when the WLF occurred, even though the intensity enhancement in hotter lines is quite weak. The temporal correlation of the WLF, HXR peak, and evaporation flows indicates that the WLF was produced by accelerated electrons. To understand the white light emission processes, we calculated the deposited energy flux from the non-thermal electrons observed by RHESSI and compared it to the dissipated energy estimated from the chromospheric lines (Mg II triplet) observed by IRIS. The deposited energy flux from the non-thermal electrons is about $3.1{\times}10^{10}erg\;cm^{-2}s^{-1}$ when we assume a cut-off energy of 20 keV. The estimated energy flux from the temperature changes in the chromosphere measured from the Mg II subordinate line is about $4.6-6.7{\times}10^9erg\;cm^{-2}s^{-1}$, 15 - 22 % of the deposited energy. By comparison of these estimated energy fluxes we conclude that the continuum enhancement was directly produced by the non-thermal electrons.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.52 no.2
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• pp.49-55
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• 2019

The New Vacuum Solar Telescope (NVST) is the largest solar telescope in China. When using CCDs for imaging, equal-thickness fringes caused by thin-film interference can occur. Such fringes reduce the quality of NVST data but cannot be removed using standard flat fielding. In this paper, a correction method based on multi-scale decomposition and adaptive partitioning is proposed. The original image is decomposed into several sub-scales by multi-scale decomposition. The region containing fringes is found and divided by an adaptive partitioning method. The interference fringes are then filtered by a frequency-domain Gaussian filter on every partitioned image. Our analysis shows that this method can effectively remove the interference fringes from a solar image while preserving useful information.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.40 no.3
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• pp.67-82
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• 2007

The basic building block of solar filaments/prominences is thin threads of cool plasma. We have studied the spectral properties of velocity threads, clusters of thinner density threads moving together, by analyzing a sequence of $H{\alpha}$ images of a quiescent filament. The images were taken at Big Bear Solar Observatory with the Lyot filter being successively tuned to wavelengths of -0.6, -0.3, 0.0, +0.3, and +0.6 ${\AA}$ from the centerline. The spectra of contrast constructed from the image data at each spatial point were analyzed using cloud models with a single velocity component, or three velocity components. As a result, we have identified a couple of velocity threads that are characterized by a narrow Doppler width($\Delta\lambda_D=0.27{\AA}$), a moderate value of optical thickness at the $H{\alpha}$ absorption peak($\tau_0=0.3$), and a spatial width(FWHM) of about 1". It has also been inferred that there exist 4-6 velocity threads along the line of sight at each spatial resolution element inside the filament. In about half of the threads, matter moves fast with a line-of-sight speed of $15{\pm}3km\;s^{-1}$, but in the other half it is either at rest or slowly moving with a line-of-sight velocity of $0{\pm}3km\;s^{-1}$. It is found that a statistical balance approximately holds between the numbers of blue-shifted threads and red-shifted threads, and any imbalance between the two numbers is responsible for the non-zero line-of-sight velocity determined using a single-component model fit. Our results support the existence not only of high speed counter-streaming flows, but also of a significant amount of cool matter either being at rest or moving slowly inside the filament.

• Journal of The Korean Astronomical Society
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• v.41 no.6
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• pp.173-180
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• 2008

Using the MHD coronal seismology technique, we estimated the magnetic field for three spicules observed in 2008 June. For this study, we used the high resolution Ca II H line ($3968.5\;{\AA}$) images observed by the Hinode SOT and considered a vertical thin flux tube as a spicule model. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to estimate the spicule magnetic field using the Hinode observation. From the observed oscillation properties, we determined the periods, amplitudes, minimum wavelengths, and wave speeds. We interpreted the observed oscillations as MHD kink waves propagating through a vertical thin flux tube embedded in a uniform field environment. Then we estimated spicule magnetic field assuming spicule densities. Major results from this study are as follows : (1) we observed three oscillating spicules having durations of 5-7 minutes, oscillating periods of 2-3 minutes, and transverse displacements of 700-1000 km. (2) The estimated magnetic field in spicules is about 10-18 G for lower density limit and about 43-76 G for upper density limit. (3) In this analysis, we can estimate the minimum wavelength of the oscillations, such as 60000 km, 56000 km, and 45000 km. This may be due to the much longer wavelength comparing with the height of spicules. (4) In the first event occurred on 2008 June 03, the oscillation existed during limited time (about 250 s). This means that the oscillation may be triggered by an impulsive mechanism (like low atmospheric reconnection), not continuous. Being compared with the ground-based observations of spicule oscillations, our observation indicates quite different one, i.e., more than one order longer in wavelength, a factor of 3-4 larger in wave speed, and 2-3 times longer in period.