Dark Halos around Solar Active Regions. I. Emission properties of the Dark Halo around NOAA 12706

TL;DR

This study characterizes the emission properties of Dark Halos around solar active regions across chromospheric, transition-region, and coronal layers, providing observational constraints to distinguish them from coronal holes.

Contribution

It combines multi-layer observations to differentiate Dark Halos from Coronal Holes, revealing their unique emission and magnetic properties for the first time.

Findings

Dark Halos have lower transition-region emission than Quiet Sun.

Dark Halos are more extended in the low corona than in chromospheric images.

Dark Halos and Coronal Holes exhibit distinct magnetic and emission characteristics.

Abstract

Dark areas around active regions (ARs) have been first observed in chromospheric lines more than a century ago and are now associated to the H{\alpha} fibril vortex around ARs. Nowadays, large areas surrounding ARs with reduced emission relative to the Quiet Sun (QS) are also observed in spectral lines emitted in the transition-region (TR) and low-corona. For example, they are clearly seen in the SDO/AIA 171 {\AA} images. We name these chromospheric and TR/coronal dark regions as Dark Halos (DHs). Coronal DHs are poorly studied and, because their origin is still unknown, to date it is not clear if they are related to the chromospheric fibrillar ones. Furthermore, they are often mistaken for Coronal Holes (CHs). Our goal is to characterize the emission properties of a DH by combining, for the first time, chromospheric, TR and coronal observations in order to provide observational constraints for future studies on the origin of DHs. This study also aims at investigating the different properties of DHs and CHs and at providing a quick-look recipe to distinguish between them. We study the DH around AR NOAA 12706 and the southern CH, that were on the disk on 2018 April 22, by analyzing IRIS full-disk mosaics, SDO/AIA filtergrams and SDO/HMI magnetograms. Fibrils are observed all around the AR core in the chromospheric Mg II h&k IRIS mosaics, most clearly in the h3 and k3 features. The TR emission in the DH is much lower compared to QS area, unlike in the CH. Moreover, the DH is much more extended in the low-corona than in the chromospheric Mg II h3 and k3 images. Finally, the intensities, emission measure, spectral profile, non-thermal velocity and average magnetic field strength measurements clearly show that DHs and CHs exhibit different characteristics and therefore should be considered as distinct types of structures on the Sun.