Undercover EUV Solar Jets Observed by the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph

TL;DR

This study uses IRIS observations to analyze small EUV jets in an active region, revealing their dynamics, spectral profiles, and energy flux, which are often obscured in EUV images due to overlying cool plasma.

Contribution

It provides detailed IRIS-based spectral and imaging analysis of small solar jets, highlighting their dynamics, spectral characteristics, and energy release, which were previously difficult to observe in EUV.

Findings

Jets show outward flows without twists, indicated by spectral line profiles.

Recurrent jets release similar energy fluxes of about 10^8 erg cm^-2 s^-1.

Mg II lines transition from optically thick to thin in Doppler-shifted wings.

Abstract

It is well-known that extreme ultraviolet emission emitted at the solar surface is absorbed by overlying cool plasma. Especially in active regions dark lanes in EUV images suggest that much of the surface activity is obscured. Simultaneous observations from IRIS, consisting of UV spectra and slit-jaw images give vital information with sub-arcsecond spatial resolution on the dynamics of jets not seen in EUV images. We studied a series of small jets from recently formed bipole pairs beside the trailing spot of active region 11991, which occurred on 2014 March 5 from 15:02:21 UT to 17:04:07 UT. There were collimated outflows with bright roots in the SJI 1400 {\AA} (transition region) and 2796 {\AA} (upper chromosphere) that were mostly not seen in AIA 304 {\AA} (transition region) and AIA 171 \AA\ (lower corona) images. The Si IV spectra show strong blue-wing but no red-wing enhancements in the line profiles of the ejecta for all recurrent jets indicating outward flows without twists. We see two types of Mg II line profiles produced by the jets spires: reversed and non-reversed. Mg II lines remain optically thick but turn into optically thin in the highly Doppler shifted wings.The energy flux contained in each recurrent jet is estimated using a velocity differential emission measure technique which measures the emitting power of the plasma as a function of line-of-sight velocity. We found that all the recurrent jets release similar energy (10$^8$ erg cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ ) toward the corona and the downward component is less than 3\%.