Time Dependent Non-Equilibrium Ionization of Transition Region Lines Observed with IRIS

TL;DR

This study investigates the non-equilibrium ionization of silicon and oxygen in the solar atmosphere using IRIS observations and simulations, revealing that these lines are formed out of statistical equilibrium and depend on local conditions.

Contribution

It demonstrates the importance of non-equilibrium ionization effects in interpreting IRIS observations of solar transition region lines, supported by comparison with 2D MHD simulations.

Findings

Observed intensity ratios vary with solar region and features.

Non-equilibrium models better reproduce observed correlations.

Lines are formed out of statistical equilibrium.

Abstract

The properties of non-statistical equilibrium ionization of silicon and oxygen ions are analyzed in this work. We focus on four solar targets (quiet sun, coronal hole, plage, quiescent active region, AR, and flaring AR) as observed with the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS). IRIS is best suited for this work due to the high cadence (up to 0.5s), high spatial resolution (up to 0.32"), and high signal to noise ratios for O IV and Si IV. We find that the observed intensity ratio between lines of three times ionized silicon and oxygen ions depends on their total intensity and that this correlation varies depending on the region observed (quiet sun, coronal holes, plage or active regions) and on the specific observational objects present (spicules, dynamic loops, jets, micro-flares or umbra). In order to interpret the observations, we compare them with synthetic profiles taken from 2D self-consistent radiative MHD simulations of the solar atmosphere, where the statistical equilibrium or non-equilibrium treatment silicon and oxygen is applied. These synthetic observations show vaguely similar correlations as in the observations, i.e. between the intensity ratios and their intensities, but only in the non-equilibrium case do we find that (some of) the observations can be reproduced. We conclude that these lines are formed out of statistical equilibrium. We use our time-dependent non-equilibrium ionization simulations to describe the physical mechanisms behind these observed properties.