The structure of solar radio noise storms

TL;DR

This study uses high-resolution solar radio imaging to analyze the structure and size of noise storms, revealing their stable core sizes, density-related origins, and challenging classical models of their vertical structure.

Contribution

The paper provides new high-resolution observations of solar noise storms, revealing stable core sizes, their altitude dependence on frequency, and insights into scattering effects and vertical structure.

Findings

Core sizes are stable over an hour, with a minimum of 31-35 arcsec.

Noise storms originate at densities higher than the ambient corona.

Observed sizes suggest scattering effects may be overestimated in past models.

Abstract

The Nan\c{c}ay Radioheliograph (NRH) routinely produces snapshot images of the full sun at frequencies between 150 and 450 MHz, with typical resolution 3 arcmin and time cadence 0.2 s. Combining visibilities from the NRH and from the Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (GMRT) allows us to produce images of the sun at 236 or 327 MHz, with a large FOV, high resolution and time cadence. We seek to investigate the structure of noise storms (the most common non-thermal solar radio emission). We focus on the relation of position and altitude of noise storms with the observing frequency and on the lower limit of their sizes. We present results for noise storms on four days. The results consist of an extended halo and of one or several compact cores with relative intensity changing over a few seconds. We found that core sizes can be almost stable over one hour, with a minimum in the range 31-35 arcsec (less than previously reported) and can be stable over one hour. The heliocentric distances of noise storms are $\sim 1.20$ and 1.35 $R_{\odot}$ at 432 and 150 MHz, respectively. Regions where storms originate are thus much denser than the ambient corona and their vertical extent is found to be less than expected from hydrostatic equilibrium. The smallest observed sizes impose upper limits on broadening effects due to scattering on density inhomogeneities in the low and medium corona and constrain the level of density turbulence in the solar corona. It is possible that scatter broadening has been overestimated in the past, and that the observed sizes cannot only be attributed to scattering. The vertical structure of the noise storms is difficult to reconcile with the classical columnar model.