Evidence for precursors of the coronal hole jets in solar bright points

TL;DR

This study identifies precursor quasi-periodic oscillations in bright point brightness that precede coronal jets, suggesting MHD wave activity plays a role in jet initiation and evolution.

Contribution

It provides observational evidence of oscillatory phenomena as precursors to coronal jets, highlighting the importance of MHD waves in jet dynamics beyond magnetic reconnection.

Findings

Precursor brightness oscillations with periods up to 4 minutes were observed before jets.

Quasi-periodic oscillations may link different stages of jet ignition and evolution.

MHD wave excitation is likely involved in the jet triggering process.

Abstract

A set of 23 observations of coronal jet events that occurred in coronal bright points has been analyzed. The focus was on the temporal evolution of the mean brightness before and during coronal jet events. In the absolute majority of the cases either single or recurrent coronal jets were preceded by slight precursor disturbances observed in the mean intensity curves. The key conclusion is that we were able to detect quasi-periodical oscillations with characteristic periods from sub-minute up to 3-4 min values in the bright point brightness which precede the jets. Our basic claim is that along with the conventionally accepted scenario of bright point evolution through new magnetic flux emergence and its reconnection with the initial structure of the bright point and the coronal hole, certain MHD oscillatory and wave-like motions can be excited and these can take an important place in the observed dynamics. These quasi-oscillatory phenomena might play the role of links between different epochs of the coronal jet ignition and evolution. They can be an indication of the MHD wave excitation processes due to the system entropy variations, density variations or shear flows. It is very likely a sharp outflow velocity transverse gradients at the edges between the open and closed field line regions. We suppose that magnetic reconnections can be the source of MHD waves due to impulsive generation or rapid temperature variations, and shear flow driven nonmodel MHD wave evolution (self-heating and/or overreflection mechanisms).