Isothermal and multithermal analysis of coronal loops observed with AIA

Abstract

The coronal filters in the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) aboard the Solar Dynamics Observatory peak at different temperatures; the series covers the entire active region temperature range, making AIA ideal for multithermal analysis. Here, we analyze coronal loops from several active regions that have been observed by AIA. We have specifically targeted cool loops (or at least loops with a cool component) that were chosen in the 171 channel of AIA, which has a peak response temperature of log T = 5.8. We wanted to determine if the loops could be described as isothermal or multithermal. We find that several of our 12 loops have narrow temperature distributions, which may be consistent with isothermal plasma; these can be modeled with a single flux tube. Other loops have intermediate-width temperature distributions, appear well-constrained, and should be multi-stranded. The remaining loops, however, have unrealistically broad differential emission measures. We find that this problem is the result of missing low-temperature lines in the AIA 131 channel. If we repeat the analysis without the 131 data, these loops also appear to be well-constrained and multi-stranded. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.