EXPLOSIVE EVENTS WITH IRIS

Advisors: Charles Kankelborg and Sarah Jaeggli

The objective of this project is to study reconnection in the solar transition region using far-ultraviolet spectra and images from the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS).

Explosive events (EEs) are line broadenings observed in transition region emission lines, at temperatures of 20,000K - 250,000K. EEs are nonthermal, meaning that the doppler velocity inferred from the broadening exceeds the thermal speed. As a result, it is widely believed that EEs are signatures of magnetic reconnection in the solar atmosphere. IRIS sees EEs frequently, perhaps several per minute or more. Your task is to identify, classify, and analyze explosive event data from a series of short, rapid cadence runs that we've conducted specifically to observe this phenomenon. The result will be a database of explosive event statistics, plots, and movies. A preliminary study along these lines is described here: http://solar.physics.montana.edu/kankel/EE/