"Cartoon of conceptual view of the solar transition region. The "moss" is the conductively heated (conductive heat flux Q from overlying hot loops) EUV "classical" TR visible in 171 A and 195 A emission, located at "chromospheric heights" above the photosphere and interacting with cool jets visible in images taken in the wings of H-alpha. Some of these jets are visible during their descent in C IV emission. The "classical TR" of coronal loops is also visible in H-alpha line center, Lyman-alpha, and, less clearly, C IV. In the lower chromosphere and photosphere, magnetic flux concentrations are demarcated by K line and G-band bright points, respectively. The field lines constituting the coronal loop anchor to many disparate elements. The chromospheric jets are constantly buffeting the moss emitting plasma on a timescale of 30 s. " - authors' caption
This cartoon is fairly far afield from flares, but is it really? In any case it is kind of neat. Certainly the important details of what happens at the "lower boundary condition" of our interesting coronal events are important. Perhaps if there is so much physics in this region, it is not a good choice for a boundary condition?
February 27, 2004