A study of chromospheric oscillations using the SOHO and trace spacecraft

We analyze line and continuum time-series data of the solar atmosphere, with between 10 and 60 s cadence, using the MDI and SUMER instruments on the SOHO spacecraft and the UV bandpasses on the TRACE satellite. The co-aligned data sets sample spectral features formed from photosphere to the middle transition region, spanning five decades in pressure, under quiet-Sun and plage conditions. We discuss power, phase difference, and coherence spectra, and examine data in the time domain. The observed photospheric and chromospheric oscillations are strongly coupled for frequencies between 2 and 8 mHz. Phase coherences decrease with increasing height, with only occasional periods and locations of observable coherence up to heights where transition region emission lines are formed. The middle chromosphere (in the SUMER continua) oscillates in several megameter (Mm) diameter coherent patches with power predominantly in the 5-7 mHz range. The TRACE data, formed in the upper photosphere, show smaller patterns superimposed on these large-scale oscillations, resulting (at least in part) from granulation. At the observed spatial scales, all the observed properties point to p-modes, especially the "pseudomodes" just above the acoustic cutoff frequency, as the dominant mode of the chromospheric dynamics. Smaller scale "acoustic event" drivers, associated with granular dynamics, appear to be less important. The predominant internetwork chromospheric oscillations arise from regions much larger horizontally than vertically. If propagating largely vertically, this can naturally explain why the one-dimensional simulations of Carlsson & Stein might be more successful than expected. The chromospheric response to the p-mode driving is, however, intermittent in space and time. Some of the intermittency appears to result from the interaction of the upward-propagating waves with magnetic fields. Evidence for this includes suppressed intensities and oscillations near quiet-Sun network elements (which we dub "magnetic shadows"), absence of oscillations in internetwork regions neighboring plage magnetic fields, and a change in character of the quiet-Sun internetwork oscillations between the 119 and 104 nm continua formed at 1 and 1.2 Mm. The latter might be caused by canopy fields that form between these heights under typical quiet-Sun conditions. A SUMER-only data set reported by Wikstøl et al. has a factor of 3 more oscillatory power in the 104 nm continuum than the data analyzed here, with stronger coherences extending into the solar transition region. Together, these data support the general picture that the chromosphere oscillates primarily in response to forcing by the p-modes, they are therefore large-scale (several Mm across) waves, and they are often strongly influenced by magnetic effects (internetwork fields, or the overlying canopy), before the oscillations even reach the transition region.