Ubiquitous high-frequency waves and disturbances in the active region corona observed with DKIST/Cryo-NIRSP

TL;DR

This study uses DKIST's Cryo-NIRSP instrument to observe high-frequency waves in the solar corona's active regions, revealing enhanced wave power and potential MHD wave modes, advancing understanding of coronal heating and solar wind acceleration.

Contribution

First high-resolution spectropolarimetric observations of high-frequency coronal waves in active regions using DKIST, highlighting wave power and MHD wave signatures.

Findings

Enhanced wave power observed up to 100 mHz

Anti-correlation between line intensity and width

Potential detection of compressive MHD waves

Abstract

The plasma of the solar corona harbors a multitude of coronal wave modes, some of which could be dissipated to provide the required energy and momentum to heat the corona and accelerate the solar wind. We present observations of the corona acquired with the newly commissioned infrared slit spectropolarimeter Cryo-NIRSP at the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST), Haleakala, Hawaii to study the high frequency wave behavior in closed, active-region structures. Cryo-NIRSP observes the corona off the limb in the Fe XIII 1074 and 1079 nm forbidden atomic lines. The large aperture of DKIST allows us to explore the active region corona with temporal resolution faster than a second with an achieved spatial resolution of 2-5 arcseconds. Enhanced wave power is observed in the power spectra up to 100 mHz. Furthermore, we report on a statistically significant anti-correlation between the Fe XIII 1074 nm peak line intensity and line width in our data, possibly pointing to the presence of compressive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) wave modes. These observations show how the powerful spectropolarimetric capabilities of DKIST offer great promise for furthering our knowledge of coronal MHD waves.