Introduction: No single mechanism has been shown to release enough energy to heat the chromosphere and corona. To understand chromospheric and coronal heating the energy transport processes from the photosphere through higher atmospheric layers must be studied. Recent results show the importance of probing smaller temporal and spatial scales. The data provided by Hinode offers an invaluable opportunity for these types of studies.
Primary Objectives: We propose to use time sequences of Hinode/SOT BFI and NFI filtergrams to describe the properties of oscillations and energy transport in the quiet Sun photosphere and lower chromosphere. We plan to study the space and time distributions of high frequency intensity oscillations in sequences of high cadence (30 seconds or less), simultaneous Ca II H-line, G-band and CN images. The propagation of the observed fluctuations will be investigated in different frequency bands roughly in the range 1 mHz < f < 24 mHz. Spatial patterns corresponding to enhancement or suppression of the oscillation amplitudes or their propagation will be identified and characterized. Observations in the lower chromosphere, obtained with the Na I and/or Mg II filters, will be used to relate the intensity oscillations to Doppler oscillations. They will further be used to determine the magnetic configurations associated with the spatial oscillatory patterns and with the corresponding velocity distributions in Doppler images. |
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