Observation and modeling of polar plumes observed during the March 29, 2006 total solar eclipse

S. I. Farid, H. M. Oluseyi, S. Sterling, A. Tan, J. L. Williamson, A. R. Winebarger

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contributionpeer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Polar plumes, plasma structures along open magnetic field lines in solar coronal holes, have long been thought to contribute to the solar wind. The aim of this work is to determine if solar eclipse and space-based line intensity observations of plumes may be used to determine if deviations from hydrostatic equilibrium can be observed in plumes. We have obtained observations of the March 29, 2006 total solar eclipse from Cape Coast, Ghana and simultaneous coronal filtergrams from the Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Telescope aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. We have developed a one-dimensional hydrodynamic computational plume model to test against the observations. We performed a parameter study in which the plumes' basal temperatures (20,000 K) and thermal conductive flux were fixed while other parameters of the model including the base velocity (from 105-104cms -1), base pressure (from 1014-1015Kcm -3), scale height (from 0.05-1.00Rs) and heating rate(from 10-1-10-5ergscm-2s-1) were varied, we calculated the predicted intensity decay rates for solutions in which coronal temperatures were reached and compared these calculated values to our observations. We find that the hydrostatic model does not predict decay rates comparable to the observed data (the model predicts rates much larger than the observations) suggesting that the plumes we observed are likely dynamic structures. The model was able to indicate constraints on the heating scale height and on heating rates for plume models. We discover that decreasing the heating rate will produce small decay rates, while a change in the scale height does not have an effect on the model's ability to predict decay rates.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationProceedings Natl. Soc. Black Physicists - 34th Annual Day Scientific Lectures and 30th Annual Meeting 2007 Joint Annual Conference Natl. Soc. of Black Physicists and Natl. Soc. Hispanic Physicists
Pages10-26
Number of pages17
DOIs
StatePublished - 2008
Event2007 Joint Annual Conference of The National Society of Black Physicists and The National Society of Hispanic Physicists - Boston, MA, United States
Duration: Feb 21 2007Jul 24 2007

Publication series

NameAIP Conference Proceedings
Volume991
ISSN (Print)0094-243X
ISSN (Electronic)1551-7616

Conference

Conference2007 Joint Annual Conference of The National Society of Black Physicists and The National Society of Hispanic Physicists
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityBoston, MA
Period02/21/0707/24/07

Keywords

  • Sun - corona
  • Sun - polar plumes
  • Sun - solar wind

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Observation and modeling of polar plumes observed during the March 29, 2006 total solar eclipse'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this