On the Temporal Evolution of the Disc Counterpart of Type II Spicules in Quiet Sun

TL;DR

This study analyzes the properties and dynamics of quiet Sun RBEs, disc counterparts of type II spicules, revealing their lifetimes, motions, wave patterns, and potential role in coronal heating with new high-cadence observations.

Contribution

It provides detailed measurements of RBE velocities, lifetimes, transverse motions, and wave patterns in quiet Sun, highlighting differences from coronal hole studies and supporting spicules' role in coronal heating.

Findings

RBEs have lower Doppler velocities in quiet Sun than in coronal holes.

Lifetimes of RBEs range from 5 to 60 seconds, averaging 30 seconds.

Transverse velocities in RBEs reach up to 55 km/s, with wave periods around 54 seconds.

Abstract

The type II spicule has been speculated to provide enough hot plasma to play an important role in the mass loading and heating of the corona. We analyse the disc counterpart to type II spicules, RBEs, in three high quality datasets from CRISP at the SST. In a quiet Sun region at disc centre we find lower Doppler velocities, 15-40km/s, and Doppler widths, 2-15km/s, of RBEs than in earlier coronal hole studies, 30-50km/s and 7-23km/s, respectively. We examine the spatial dependence of Doppler velocities and widths along RBE axes and conclude that there is no clear trend over the FOV or in individual RBEs in quiet Sun at disc centre. These differences with previous coronal hole studies are attributed to the more varying magnetic field configuration in quiet Sun conditions. Using an extremely high cadence dataset allowed us to improve greatly on the determination of lifetimes of RBEs, found to range from 5 to 60s with an average of 30s, as well as the transverse motions in RBEs, with transverse velocities up to 55km/s and averaging 12km/s. Furthermore, our measurements of the recurrence rates of RBEs provide important new constraints on coronal heating by spicules. We also see many examples of a sinusoidal wave pattern in the transverse motion with periods averaging 54s and amplitudes from 21.5 to 129km, agreeing well with previous studies of wave motion in limb spicules. We interpret the appearance of RBEs over their full length within a few seconds as the result of a combination of three kinds of motions as reported earlier for spicules. Finally, we look at the temporal connection between Ha and Ca 8542 RBEs and find Ca 8542 in addition to being located closer to the footpoint also appear before the Ha RBE. This connection supports the idea that heating occurs in spicules and contribute more weight to the prominence of spicules as a source for heating and mass loading of the corona.