On Quasi-biennial oscillations in chromospheric macrospicules and their potential relation to global solar magnetic field

TL;DR

This study investigates the quasi-biennial oscillations in chromospheric macrospicules and their potential connection to the global solar magnetic field, revealing a 2-year periodicity and phase relationships with solar activity proxies.

Contribution

It provides evidence linking macrospicule properties to solar magnetic activity through long-term analysis and wavelet techniques, highlighting a possible coupling between local and global solar processes.

Findings

Detected ~2-year periodicities in macrospicule properties.

Found out-of-phase relationship between macrospicule QBOs and solar activity proxies.

Suggested coupling between local macrospicule dynamics and global solar magnetic field variations.

Abstract

This study aims to provide further evidence for the potential influence of the global solar magnetic field on localised chromospheric jets, the macrospicules (MS). To find a connection between the long-term variation of properties of MS and other solar activity proxies, including e.g. the temporal variation of the frequency shift of solar global oscillations, sunspot area, etc., a database overarching seven years of observations was built up. This database contains 362 MS, based on observations at the 30.4 nm of the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on-board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Three of the five investigated physical properties of MS show a clear long-term temporal variation after smoothing the raw data. Wavelet analysis of the temporal variation of maximum length, maximum area and average velocity is carried out. The results reveal a strong pattern of periodicities at around 2-year (also referred to as Quasi-Biennial Oscillations -- QBOs). Comparison to solar activity proxies, that also possess the properties of QBOs, provides some interesting features: the minima and maxima of QBOs of MS properties occur at around the same epoch as the minima and maxima of these activity proxies. For most of the time span investigated, the oscillations are out-of-phase. This out-of-phase behaviour was also corroborated by a cross-correlation analysis. These results suggest that the physical processes, that generate and drive the long-term evolution of the global solar activity proxies, may be coupled to the short-term local physical processes driving the macrospicules, and, therefore modulate the properties of local dynamics.