The Magnetic Origin of Solar Campfires

TL;DR

This study investigates the magnetic origins of solar campfires, small-scale heating events, revealing their association with magnetic flux cancelation, and demonstrating their potential role in heating the solar atmosphere.

Contribution

The paper provides the first detailed analysis linking solar campfires to magnetic flux cancelation and flux ropes, expanding understanding of small-scale solar dynamic features.

Findings

Campfires are rooted at magnetic network edges.

Most campfires occur above neutral lines with flux cancelation.

Campfires contain enough magnetic energy to heat the solar atmosphere.

Abstract

Solar campfires are fine-scale heating events, recently observed by Extreme Ultraviolet Imager (EUI), onboard Solar Orbiter. Here we use EUI 174\AA\ images, together with EUV images from SDO/AIA, and line-of-sight magnetograms from SDO/HMI to investigate the magnetic origin of 52 randomly selected campfires in the quiet solar corona. We find that (i) the campfires are rooted at the edges of photospheric magnetic network lanes; (ii) most of the campfires reside above the neutral line between majority-polarity magnetic flux patch and a merging minority-polarity flux patch, with a flux cancelation rate of $\sim$10$^{18}$Mx hr$^{-1}$; (iii) some of the campfires occur repeatedly from the same neutral line; (iv) in the large majority of instances, campfires are preceded by a cool-plasma structure, analogous to minifilaments in coronal jets; and (v) although many campfires have `complex' structure, most campfires resemble small-scale jets, dots, or loops. Thus, `campfire' is a general term that includes different types of small-scale solar dynamic features. They contain sufficient magnetic energy ($\sim$10$^{26}$-10$^{27}$ erg) to heat the solar atmosphere locally to 0.5--2.5MK. Their lifetimes range from about a minute to over an hour, with most of the campfires having a lifetime of $<$10 minutes. The average lengths and widths of the campfires are 5400$\pm$2500km and 1600$\pm$640km, respectively. Our observations suggest that (a) the presence of magnetic flux ropes may be ubiquitous in the solar atmosphere and not limited to coronal jets and larger-scale eruptions that make CMEs, and (b) magnetic flux cancelation is the fundamental process for the formation and triggering of most campfires.