Hi-C 2.1 Observations of Jetlet-like Events at Edges of Solar Magnetic Network Lane

TL;DR

This study reports high-resolution observations of six small-scale jet-like events at the edges of solar magnetic network lanes, revealing their magnetic origins and potential connection to larger solar eruptions.

Contribution

The paper presents detailed high-resolution imaging and magnetic analysis of jetlet-like events, suggesting their possible link to miniature eruptions driven by flux cancelation.

Findings

All six events are jetlet-like and located at magnetic network edges.

Four events originate from flux cancelation sites.

Average spire length is 9,000 km, shorter than IRIS jetlets.

Abstract

We present high-resolution, high-cadence observations of six, fine-scale, on-disk jet-like events observed by the High-resolution Coronal Imager 2.1 (Hi-C 2.1) during its sounding-rocket flight. We combine the Hi-C 2.1 images with images from SDO/AIA, and IRIS, and investigate each event's magnetic setting with co-aligned line-of-sight magnetograms from SDO/HMI. We find that: (i) all six events are jetlet-like (having apparent properties of jetlets), (ii) all six are rooted at edges of magnetic network lanes, (iii) four of the jetlet-like events stem from sites of flux cancelation between majority-polarity network flux and merging minority-polarity flux, and (iv) four of the jetlet-like events show brightenings at their bases reminiscent of the base brightenings in coronal jets. The average spire length of the six jetlet-like events (9,000$\pm$3000km) is three times shorter than that for IRIS jetlets (27,000$\pm$8000km). While not ruling out other generation mechanisms, the observations suggest that at least four of these events may be miniature versions of both larger-scale coronal jets that are driven by minifilament eruptions and still-larger-scale solar eruptions that are driven by filament eruptions. Therefore, we propose that our Hi-C events are driven by the eruption of a tiny sheared-field flux rope, and that the flux-rope field is built and triggered to erupt by flux cancelation.