Magnetic Field Dynamics and Varying Plasma Emission in Large-scale Coronal Loops

Abstract

In this study we report detailed observations of magnetic environment at four footpoints of two warm coronal loops observed on 2016 May 5 in NOAA AR 12542 (Loop I) and 2015 December 17 in NOAA AR 12470 (Loop II). These loops were connecting a plage region with sunspot periphery (Loop I) and a sunspot umbra (Loop II). We used Solar Dynamics Observatory ( SDO ) and Goode Solar Telescope (GST) data to describe the phenomenon and understand its causes. The study indicates loop brightening episodes were associated with magnetic flux emergence and cancellation processes observed in SDO ’s Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager and GST’s Near InfraRed Imaging Spectrapolarimeter data. The observed activity was driven by magnetic reconnection between small-scale emerging dipoles and large-scale pre-existing fields, suggesting that the reconnection occurred in the lower chromosphere at the edge of an extended plage region, where the loops were rooted. We suggest that plasma, evaporated during these reconnection events, gradually filled the loops and as it cooled the visible density front propagated from one footpoint of the loop to another at a rate of 90–110 km s −1 . This study also indicates that at least some of the bright loops seen in SDO Atmospheric Imaging Assembly images rooted in sunspot umbra may be heated due to magnetic activity taking place at the remote (nonsunspot) footpoint.