Unresolved fine-scale structure in solar coronal loop-tops

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution solar observations to reveal that coronal loops contain finer, multi-stranded sub-structures often below current resolution limits, enhancing understanding of solar coronal complexity.

Contribution

It demonstrates the presence of multi-thermal, multi-stranded sub-structures in coronal loops at scales below 100 km, utilizing combined SST/CRISP and SDO/AIA observations.

Findings

Coronal loop sub-structures can be bunched with up to 8 strands.

Most strands are unresolved in AIA data, below 100 km scale.

Large-scale catastrophic cooling occurs at coronal loop-tops.

Abstract

New and advanced space-based observing facilities continue to lower the resolution limit and detect solar coronal loops in greater detail. We continue to discover even finer sub-structures within coronal loop cross sections, in order to understand the nature of the solar corona. Here, we push this lower limit further to search for the finest coronal loop sub-structures, through taking advantage of the resolving power of the Swedish 1- m Solar Telescope (SST) / CRisp Imaging Spectro-Polarimeter (CRISP), together with co-observations from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) / Atmospheric Image Assembly (AIA). High resolution imaging of the chromospheric H-alpha 656.28 nm spectral line core and wings can, under certain circumstances, allow one to deduce the topology of the local magnetic environment of the solar atmosphere where its observed. Here, we study post-flare coronal loops, which become filled with evaporated chromosphere that rapidly condenses into chromospheric clumps of plasma (detectable in H-alpha) known as a coronal rain, to investigate their fine-scale structure. We identify, through analysis of three datasets, large-scale catastrophic cooling in coronal loop-tops and the existence of multi-thermal, multi-stranded sub-structures. Many cool strands even extend fully-intact from loop-top to foot-point. We discover that coronal loop fine-scale strands can appear bunched with as many as 8 parallel strands, within an AIA coronal loop cross-section. The strand number density vs cross-sectional width distribution, as detected by CRISP within AIA-defined coronal loops, most-likely peaks at well below 100 km and currently 69% of the sub-structure strands are statistically unresolved in AIA coronal loops.