Observational Study on the Fine Structure and Dynamics of a Solar Jet. II. Energy Release Process Revealed by Spectral Analysis

TL;DR

This study investigates the energy release and internal structure of a solar jet associated with a flare, using spectral analysis of H-alpha data to reveal velocity gradients, internal dynamics, and secondary acceleration linked to magnetic reconnection.

Contribution

It provides detailed spectral analysis of the solar jet, uncovering internal velocity gradients and evidence of secondary acceleration due to magnetic reconnection involving plasmoids.

Findings

Significant velocity and optical thickness gradients across the jet.

Identification of secondary acceleration near the intersection of H-alpha and X-ray jets.

Evidence supporting magnetic reconnection involving plasmoids as the energy release mechanism.

Abstract

We report a solar jet phenomenon associated with the C5.4 class flare on 2014 November 11. The data of jet was provided by Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO), X-Ray Telescope (XRT) aboard Hinode, Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) and Domeless Solar Telescope (DST) at Hida Observatory, Kyoto University. These plentiful data enabled us to present this series of papers to discuss the entire processes of the observed phenomena including the energy storage, event trigger, and energy release. In this paper, we focus on the energy release process of the observed jet, and mainly describe our spectral analysis on the H-alpha data of DST to investigate the internal structure of the H-alpha jet and its temporal evolution. This analysis reveals that in the physical quantity distributions of the H-alpha jet, such as line-of-sight velocity and optical thickness, there is a significant gradient in the direction crossing the jet. We interpret this internal structure as the consequence of the migration of energy release site, based on the idea of ubiquitous reconnection. Moreover, by measuring the horizontal flow of the fine structures in jet, we succeeded in deriving the three-dimensional velocity field and the line-of-sight acceleration field of the H-alpha jet. The analysis result indicates a part of ejecta in the H-alpha jet experienced the additional acceleration after it had been ejected from the lower atmosphere. This secondary acceleration was specified to occur in the vicinity of the intersection between the trajectories of the H-alpha jet and X-ray jet observed by Hinode/XRT. We propose that a fundamental cause of this phenomenon is the magnetic reconnection involving the plasmoid in the observed jet.