An improved method for estimating the velocity field of coronal propagating disturbances

TL;DR

This paper introduces an efficient, improved method for mapping the velocity vector field of propagating disturbances in the solar corona using EUV images, providing insights into coronal magnetic topology especially in quiet Sun regions.

Contribution

The paper presents a novel, faster algorithm for estimating coronal velocity fields from EUV data, enhancing previous methods by an order of magnitude in efficiency.

Findings

Velocity fields reveal coherent outward flows in the quiet Sun

Flow sources correlate with supergranular network boundaries

Maps serve as proxies for the coronal magnetic field topology

Abstract

The solar corona is host to a continuous flow of propagating disturbances (PD). These are continuous and ubiquitous across broad regions of the corona, including the quiet Sun. The aim of this paper is to present an improved, efficient method to create velocity vector field maps, based on the direction and magnitude of the PD as observed in time series of extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images. The method is presented here for use with the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA)/Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) EUV channels, and takes as input \app2 hours of images at the highest 12s cadence. Data from a region near disk center is extracted, and a process called time normalization applied to the co-aligned data. Following noise reduction using \atrous\ decomposition, the PD are effectively revealed. A modified Lucas Kanade algorithm is then used to map the velocity field. The method described here runs comfortably on a desktop computer in a few minutes, and offers an order of magnitude improvement in efficiency compared to a previous implementation. Applied to a region of the quiet Sun, we find that the velocity field describes a mosaic of cells of coherent outwardly-diverging PD flows, of typical size 50 to 100\arcsec\ (36 to 72Mm). The flows originate from points and narrow corridors in the cell centres, and end in the narrow boundaries between cells. Visual comparison with ultraviolet AIA images shows that the flow sources are correlated with the bright photospheric supergranular network boundaries. Assuming that the PD follow the local magnetic field, the velocity flow field is a proxy for the plane-of-sky distribution of the coronal magnetic field, and therefore the maps offer a unique insight into the topology of the corona. These are particularly valuable for quiet Sun regions where the appearance of structures in EUV images is hard to interpret.