Dynamics in the Transition Region beneath Active Region Upflows Viewed by IRIS

Abstract

Abstract Coronal upflows at the edges of active regions (ARs), which are a possible source of slow solar wind, have been found to connect with dynamics in the transition region. To infer at what scale transition region dynamics connect to AR upflows, we investigate the statistical properties of the small-scale dynamics in the transition region underneath the upflows at the edge of NOAA Active Region 11934. With observations from the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS), we found that the Si iv 1403 Å Doppler map consists of numerous blueshifted and redshifted patches mostly with sizes less than 1 Mm2. The blueshifted structures in the transition region tend to be brighter than the redshifted ones, but their nonthermal velocities have no significant difference. With the SWAMIS feature-tracking procedure, we found in IRIS slit-jaw 1400 Å images that dynamic bright dots with an average size of about 0.3 Mm2 and lifetimes of mostly less than 200 s were spread all over the region. Most of the bright dots appear to be localized, without a clear signature of plasma propagation to a long distance on the projection plane. Surge-like motions with speeds of about 15 km s−1 could be seen in some events at the boundaries of the upflow region, where the magnetic field appeared to be inclined. We conclude that the transition region dynamics connecting to coronal upflows should occur in at a very fine scale, suggesting that the corresponding coronal upflows should also be highly structured. It is also plausible that the transition region dynamics might just act as stimulation at the coronal base, which then drives the upflows in the corona.