Super Penumbral Chromospheric Flare

TL;DR

This study investigates a C-class solar flare at a sunspot's super-penumbra boundary, revealing magnetic reconnection, high-velocity plasma flows, and flow discontinuities linked to magnetic field structures.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the magnetic and plasma dynamics during a super-penumbral flare, highlighting flow velocities, magnetic discontinuities, and oscillations in the chromosphere.

Findings

Inverse Evershed flows reach ~10 km/s in Hα wavelengths.

Flow velocities are about seven times higher than typical inverse Evershed speeds.

Flow discontinuity occurs at the penumbral boundary due to magnetic field differences.

Abstract

We observed a C-class flare at the outer boundary of the super-penumbra of a sunspot. The flare was triggered by an emerging magnetic bipolar region that was obliquely oriented with respect to the super-penumbral fibrils. The flare started due to the low height magnetic reconnection of emerging magnetic flux with super-penumbral field resulting hot multi-temperature plasma flows in the inverse Evershed flow channel and its overlying atmosphere. The inverse Evershed flows in the chromosphere start from super penumbra towards sunspot that end at the outer boundary of the penumbra. The hot plasma flow towards the sunspot in the inverse Evershed channels show about 10 km s$^{-1}$ higher velocity in H$\alpha$ wavelengths compared to the plasma emissions at various temperatures as seen in different AIA filters. Even though these velocities are about seven times higher than the typical inverse-Evershed flow speeds, the flow is diminished at the outer boundary of the sunspot's penumbra. This suggests that the super-penumbral field lines that carry the inverse Evershed flows, are discontinued at the boundary where the penumbral field lines dive into the sun and these two sets of field lines are completely distinct. The discontinuity in the typical magnetic field and plasma properties at the adjoining of these two sets of field lines further leads the discontinuity in the characteristic magnetoacoustic and Alfv\'en speeds, therefore, stopping the plasma flows further on. The multi-temperature plasma in the inverse Evershed channels exhibits \textbf{possible} longitudinal oscillations initially during the onset of the flare, and later flows towards the sunspot. In the multi-temperature view, the different layers above the flare region have the mixture of supersonic as well as subsonic flows.