On 18 January, vigorous activity appeared in the active region AR 5312,
and flare evolution, characteristics and related conditions can be seen
obviously in the multi-band optical data.
It is shown from Tables 3 (click here) and 5 (click here) and Figs. 1 (click here) and
2 (click here) that activities of ordinary (or H) flares took place
frequently and kernels of the WLF were brightening continuously.
The original bright points of kernels 1 (containing 4 smaller bright points), 4 and 5 (from an ordinary flare) were located between umbra and penumbra of sunspots or in penumbra fibrils. After the bright points became brighter and larger, they covered the umbra and penumbra of the sunspots or photosphere. The original bright points of kernels 2 (containing 4 smaller bright points), 3, 6 (containing 3 smaller bright points) and 7 were located on the plages lying respectively in penumbra of sunspots, on the photosphere or at two ends of the extended light bridge connecting sunspots B1 and B2. The penumbra of sunspots, photosphere or plages were covered by the brightening and enlarged bright points.
The H off-band observations (see the bottom of Fig. 1 (click here))
show that before and after the first maximum of the ordinary flares the
redshift was stronger than the blue shift. However, kernel 3 showed blue
shift in 3 intervals before and after the maximum of the WLF. For kernel
6, before, during and after the maximum of the WLF, its leading part
(in the west limb) changed from
blue to redshift, and then back to blue shift; while the following part
(in the east limb) changed from redshift to blue shift and then back to
redshift. The motion directions of the leading and following parts are
opposite but in the
same scale. This seems to be a cycling motion. Kernel 7 shows a
redshift. The kernels lying in the umbra and penumbra of the
sunspots morphologically showed a small displacement.
H![]() | Imp. or Class | |||||
Activity No. | Beg. | Max. | End | H![]() | X-ray | Remarks |
05:08 | 05:09 | 05:12D | SF | C9.6 | NOAA (1989), YUOBSa | |
06:06 | 06:37 | 06:37D | SB | NOAA (1989), YUOBS | ||
06:40 | 06:44 | 06:48 | SB | YUOBS | ||
07:02 | 07:07U | 07:13D | 1F | NOAA (1989), YUOBS | ||
07:20 | X1.0 | NOAA (1989), YUOBS | ||||
07:28 | YUOBS | |||||
07:35 | YUOBS | |||||
07:45 | YUOBS | |||||
07:53 | YUOBS | |||||
08:05E | 08:19U | 08:23D | SF | NOAA (1989), YUOBS | ||
08:51E | 09:12U | 09:52 | 1N | M9.0 | NOAA (1989) | |
17:17 | 17:27 | 17:46 | SF | NOAA (1989) | ||
17:57 | 18:37 | 19:08 | SF | NOAA (1989) | ||
a Yunnan Observatory. |
Instrument | Aperture | ![]() | A** | Resolution | |
Number | (mm) | (mm) | (mm2) | ('') | Others |
22![]() | filter wavelength | ||||
at center: | |||||
6563 Å, band- | |||||
width: 0.48 Å | |||||
and adjustable range: | |||||
![]() | |||||
24![]() | Slit height: 20 mm; plane | ||||
grating: 127![]() | |||||
49![]() | ten bands; average linear | ||||
(H![]() | dispersion: 1 Å![]() | ||||
with H![]() | |||||
time needed for each | |||||
scanning: around 1 min. | |||||
36![]() | |||||
* the diameter of solar image, ** the area of frame. |
Kernel | H![]() | White light flare (UT) | |||||||||
number | plage | Flare | |||||||||
| Size | ||||||||||
Beg. | Max. | End | Life | Beg. | SR Time | End | Life | ![]() | N | ||
05:32-08:04 | 06:26 | 06:37 | |||||||||
06:44 | |||||||||||
07:00 | 07:08 | 07:03 | 07:04-07:05 | 4 | |||||||
07:20 | 07:35 | 00:35 | 07:19-07:20 | 07:23 | 00:20 | ||||||
05:32-08:17 | 06:26 | 06:37 | |||||||||
06:44 | 06:48 | ||||||||||
07:00 | 07:08 | 07:03 | 07:04-07:05 | 4 | |||||||
07:20 | 07:19-07:20 | ||||||||||
07:28 | |||||||||||
07:35 | 07:33-07:34 | ||||||||||
07:45 | 07:43-07:44 | 07:45 | 00:42 | ||||||||
07:53 | 08:00 | 01:00 | |||||||||
06:35-07:53 | 07:00 | 07:08 | 07:03 | 07:04-07:05 | a | ||||||
07:20 | 07:19-07:20 | ||||||||||
07:28 | |||||||||||
07:45 | 00:45 | 07:33-07:34 | 07:35 | 00:32 | |||||||
05:32-07:53 | 06:26 | 06:37 | |||||||||
06:44 | 06:48 | ||||||||||
07:00 | 07:08 | 07:03 | 07:04-07:05 | ||||||||
07:20 | 07:19-07:20 | ||||||||||
07:28 | |||||||||||
07:45 | 00:45 | 07:33-07:34 | 07:35 | 00:32 | |||||||
06:58-08:04 | 07:00 | 07:08 | 07:03 | 07:04-07:05 | |||||||
07:20 | 07:19-07:20 | ||||||||||
07:28 | |||||||||||
07:35 | 07:45 | 00:45 | 07:33-07:34 | 07:35 | 00:32 | ||||||
03:37-08:17 | 06:40 | 06:44 | 06:48 | ||||||||
07:00 | 07:08 | 07:03 | 07:04-07:05 | 3 | |||||||
07:20 | 07:19-07:20 | ||||||||||
07:28 | |||||||||||
07:35 | 07:45 | 00:45 | 07:33-07:34 | 07:35 | 00:32 | ||||||
06:52-07:13 | 07:00 | 07:08 | 07:10 | 00:10 | 07:03 | 07:04-07:05 | 07:08 | 00:05 | b |
It can be seen from Table 3 (click here) that several bursts appeared in
AR 5312, and 6 H flare maxima occurred from 07:00 to 08:00UT.
Before the first 4 maxima of the H
flare, the white light flare and
its continuum spectra were observed (no observations were made before
07:28UT due to bad weather). In Table 5 (click here), it is shown that the
kernels of the WLF have different lifetimes, the lifetime of kernel 7 is 5
minutes, kernel 1 is 20 minutes, and for kernels 3, 4, 5 and 6 each is 32
minutes. The lifetime of kernel 2 is over 40 minutes. The
phenomenon may indicate that the WLF is typically a long lifetime type.
Table 5 (click here) also shows that the WLF appeared 2 to 3 minutes after the
H
flare, and its maxima appeared respectively before the first
maximum (such as kernel 7) and 1 to 2 minutes before the second maximum of
the H
flare. However, the disappearance of the WLF is dependent on
the lifetimes of the kernels. If the lifetimes of the kernels are shorter,
it may disappear faster or vice versa. The kernels all appeared
simultaneously, but their maxima and disappearance were in different times.
The kernels disappeared before the disappearance of the H
flare.
The kernels have different shapes. Kernels 3, 4 and 7 are nearly circular
in shape. Kernels 1, 5 and 6 are elliptical, and kernel 2 is cashew-like.
The shapes of the kernels may possibly be dependent on their intrinsic
structure and projection on the sight-line direction. The sizes of the
kernels are also different, from the observations of the H flare at
07:03:53UT, except for kernels 3 and 7. The sizes of other kernels (by the
average size of smaller kernels in each kernel) are in the range
cm2 (see Table 5 (click here)). This result
is in agreement with those given by Dezso et al. (1980) and
Hiei (1980).
One can see from Figs. 1 (click here) and 4 (click here) that before the appearance of the WLF there were plages with different area and brightness at the locations of the WLF kernels. The plages were relatively stationary, and some small flares had occurred on them. The lifetimes of the plages seem to be associated with that of the WLF. For example, the lifetime of kernel 7 is short, and that of the plage in its place is also short, only about 20 minutes. The lifetimes of other kernels are longer, and the plages in their places have longer lifetimes. A typical plage is the one at the place of kernel 6. Its lifetime is about 5 hr.
Figure 1: A series of H filtergrams for the flare
on 18 January 1989 in the active region (AR 5312). The arrows indicate
active filaments (time in UT). Bottom: H
off-band observations
Figure 2: The overlying of photospheric sunspots and
chromospheric H. A, B and C represent sunspot umbra (04:35 UT), the
dotted line shows the WLF kernels and solid line with number indicates the
spatial location of the incident slit and the scanning step.
The bottom of the figure is sunspots on the photosphere before the WLF
on 18 January
Figure 3: The evolution of sunspots on the photosphere and
longitudinal magnetic field (provided by Hairou station of Beijing Observatory)
Figure 4: H line profile
variations of the kernel 2 in the first time interval. The solid
and dotted lines indicate the observed intensity
of the flare
and the intensity (I0) of nearby undisturbed background, respectively;
is wavelength and K represents the WLF kernels, and the number
before K shows the observing time duration, the first number in the suffix of
K represents kernel number, the second the scanning order, the third and
fourth numbers represent the sequential order of line profiles (perpendicular
to the slit)
Before the flare, chromospheric fibrils bent toward the active region and formed an orderly pattern, nearly in the direction of southeast to northwest, along which the flare and the kernels shifted. It is interesting that the direction along which the chromospheric fibrils moved was just perpendicular to the motion of penumbra fibrils on the photosphere. The phenomenon is in good agreement with the magnetic field observations at Beijing Observatory (Zhang et al. 1991).
It also can be seen in Fig. 1 (click here) that three branches of a large quiescent dark filament at the west end are activated (i.e. changes take place in the longitudinal components of the magnetic field) before the flare and bend toward the active region, combining with the chromospheric fibrils. In and around the active region, some small filaments (as indicated by the arrow in Fig. 1 (click here)) are activated one after another before the continuum emission. However, only in the place where the small filaments were activated and disappeared rapidly (that is, the annihilation of the longitudinal components of the magnetic field) can white light flares and continuum emission be observed. In other areas, only ordinary flares can be observed. For example, no continuum emission was observed in the bright area on the northern end of the light bridge connecting B1 and B2.
AR 5312 passed over the solar disk 3 times in total. The observations were made on its second pass. From its appearance to disappearance on the solar disk, the major sunspot had been surrounded by the same penumbra. The active region showed a complex internal structure and rapid evolution, and new flux emerged continuously. Squeezed and sheared effects also took place between the sunspots. A white light flare (S31 E30, Neidig et al. 1993) occurred on 10 January, and another (S30 W65, see Figs. 1 and 5) appeared on 18 January (Xuan et al. 1991). Before the flare on 18 Jan. there were a number of penumbra fibrils around the spatial locations of all kernels except for kernel 3, i.e. in sunspot group A, between group A and B, and on the light bridge connecting B1 and B2, and some fibrils extended toward the photosphere where some fibrils were in arch-like shape. The initial bright points of the kernels originated in umbra and penumbra, at the boundary between penumbra and the photosphere, in penumbra fibrils, on the photosphere or on the light bridge.
It is shown in Fig. 3 (click here) that the magnetic configuration of the active
region is a -structure in the evolution process, and the twisted and
closed magnetic neutral lines between the sunspot groups A and B change
constantly. On 18 January, the neutral lines were compressed in the east-west direction
and began opening from the closed pattern in the south. A large change
in the magnetic structure occurred. Kernels 2 and 5 lie on the
changing neutral lines and kernels 1, 4, 6 and 7 are near the lines. In the
locations of the kernels, new emerging fluxes are enhanced, but the gradient
of the longitudinal field is not very large. The magnetic field observations
of Beijing Observatory show that the direction of the penumbra fibrils on
the photosphere
was the same as that of the transversal component of the magnetic field
(Zhang et al. 1991). Therefore, the kernels were constrained by
the small transverse field on the photosphere.
We present only H line profiles of the kernels. The analysis of the
other lines can be found in Xuan et al. (1991).
It can be seen from Fig. 4 (click here) that the spectral line profile centers
of the kernels show different changes, and no reversal profile appears at
the center of kernel 1. The line profile centers in kernel 2 from intervals
1 to 4 show a strong reversal (see Fig. 4 (click here)). The closer to the edge
of the kernels, the line center reversal is weaker and has no reversal. In
the meantime, the line profiles with reversal in kernel 2 have a wide
line width, and for others the line width is relatively narrower. The
changes in the line width of kernels 3 and 6 and line center reversal are
similar to kernel 2. This
may suggest that the reversal of the observed line profile centers is not only
dependent upon the properties of the kernels themselves, but also has temporal and
spatial characteristics. In comparison with Table 2 (click here) and
from the reversal of the H
line centers and line width changes,
we find that kernels 2, 3 and 6 of the white light flare on 18 January
1989 correspond to the temperature distribution in the semi-empirical
models F1 and F2 (Machado et al. 1980; Fang
et al. 1993), while both line widening and center reversal do not
appear in kernel 1. This is possibly due to hydrogen affected by nonthermal
excitation and ionization of
ion (Hénoux et al.
1993). It is shown that the white light flare belongs to a mixed type
with properties of both types I and II.
It is also shown in Fig. 4 (click here) that the observed profiles of the kernels display different redshift and blue shift. For example, the redshift of the kernel 1 is rather significant. The reversal appears at the centers of the profiles in kernel 3 and the blue end is stronger. At the centers of the profiles in kernel 6, the reversal appears, but the red end is stronger. In the first time interval, kernel 2 shows an obvious blue shift, but at the line profile centers with larger reversal, the red end is stronger. In intervals 2, 3 and 4, the blue end is stronger at the profile centers with an obvious reversal, opposite to the situation in the first interval. This probably indicates that the direction and scale of material motions are different for different kernels in the same white light flare.