Magnetic diffusion in Solar atmosphere produces measurable electric fields

Abstract

The efficient release of magnetic energy in astrophysical plasmas, such as during solar flares, can in principle be achieved through magnetic diffusion, at a rate determined by the associated electric field. However, attempts at measuring electric fields in the solar atmosphere are scarce, and none exist for sites where the magnetic energy is presumably released. Here, we present observations of an energetic event using the National Science Foundation's Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, where we detect the polarization signature of electric fields associated with magnetic diffusion. We measure the linear and circular polarization across the hydrogen H-epsilon Balmer line at 397 nm at the site of a brightening event in the solar chromosphere. Our spectro-polarimetric modeling demonstrates that the observed polarization signals can only be explained by the presence of electric fields, providing conclusive evidence of magnetic diffusion, and opening a new window for the quantitative study of this mechanism in space plasmas.

24 pages, 11 figures, published in Nature Communications

References in corpus (20)

• The Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) Vector Magnetic Field Pipeline: SHARPs -- Space-weather HMI Active Region Patches
• Fast Reconnection in High-Lundquist-Number Plasmas Due to Secondary Tearing Instabilities
• The stellar atmosphere simulation code Bifrost
• Plasmoid-Induced-Reconnection and Fractal Reconnection
• Formation of Plasmoid Chains in Magnetic Reconnection
• Magnetic reconnection and stochastic plasmoid chains in high-Lundquist-number plasmas
• A publicly available simulation of an enhanced network region of the Sun
• Ellerman Bombs at high resolution: I. Morphological evidence for photospheric reconnection
• Magnetic reconnection in the era of exascale computing and multiscale experiments
• Bombs and flares at the surface and lower atmosphere of the Sun
• Fluid description of multi-component solar partially ionized plasma
• Multi-fluid simulations of chromospheric magnetic reconnection in a weakly ionized reacting plasma
• The Visible Spectro-Polarimeter of the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope
• The Hanle Effect of the Hydrogen Ly-alpha Line for Probing the Magnetism of the Solar Transition Region
• DeSIRe: Departure coefficient aided Stokes Inversion based on Response functions
• Automating Ellerman bomb detection in ultraviolet continua
• Diagnosis of Magnetic and Electric Fields of Chromospheric Jets through Spectropolarimetric Observations of HI Paschen Lines
• The Effects of Atmospheric Dispersion on High-Resolution Solar Spectroscopy
• Formation of H$\epsilon$ in the solar atmosphere
• Scattering polarization of hydrogen lines in the presence of turbulent electric fields

Cited by in corpus (1)

• Small-scale energetic phenomena in Hε: Ellerman bombs, UV bursts, and small flares