The recent discovery of nanojets by Antolin et al. represents magnetic reconnection in a braided field, thus clearly identifying reconnection-driven nanoflares. Due to their small scale (500 km in width, 1500 km in length) and short timescales (<15 s), it is unclear how pervasive nanojets are in the solar corona. In this paper, we present Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph and Solar Dynamics Observatory observations of nanojets found in multiple coronal structures, namely, in a coronal loop powered by a blowout jet, and in two other coronal loops with coronal rain. In agreement with previous findings, we observe that nanojets are accompanied by small nanoflare-like intensity bursts in the (E)UV, have velocities of 150–250 km s−1 and occur transversely to the field line of origin, which is sometimes observed to split. However, we find a variety of nanojet directions in the plane transverse to the loop axis. These nanojets are found to have kinetic and thermal energies within the nanoflare range, and often occur in clusters. In the blowout jet case study, the Kelvin–Helmholtz instability (KHI) is directly identified as the reconnection driver. For the other two loops, we find that both, KHI and Rayleigh–Taylor instability (RTI) are likely to be the drivers. However, we find that KHI and RTI are each more likely in one of the other two cases. These observations of nanojets in a variety of structures and environments support nanojets being a general result of reconnection that are driven here by dynamic instabilities.

Context. Densely packed coronal loops are rooted in photospheric plages in the vicinity of active regions on the Sun. The photospheric magnetic features underlying these plage areas are patches of mostly unidirectional magnetic field extending several arcsec on the solar surface. Aims. We aim to explore the transient nature of the magnetic field, its mixed-polarity characteristics, and the associated energetics in the active region plage using high spatial resolution observations and numerical simulations. Methods. We used photospheric Fe i 6173 Å spectropolarimetric observations of a decaying active region obtained from the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope (SST). These data were inverted to retrieve the photospheric magnetic field underlying the plage as identified in the extreme-ultraviolet emission maps obtained from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). To obtain better insight into the evolution of extended unidirectional magnetic field patches on the Sun, we performed 3D radiation magnetohydrodynamic simulations of magnetoconvection using the MURaM code. Results. The observations show transient magnetic flux emergence and cancellation events within the extended predominantly unipolar patch on timescales of a few 100 s and on spatial scales comparable to granules. These transient events occur at the footpoints of active region plage loops. In one case the coronal response at the footpoints of these loops is clearly associated with the underlying transient. The numerical simulations also reveal similar magnetic flux emergence and cancellation events that extend to even smaller spatial and temporal scales. Individual simulated transient events transfer an energy flux in excess of 1 MW m −2 through the photosphere.Conclusions. We suggest that the magnetic transients could play an important role in the energetics of active region plage. Both in observations and simulations, the opposite-polarity magnetic field brought up by transient flux emergence cancels with the surrounding plage field. Magnetic reconnection associated with such transient events likely conduits magnetic energy to power the overlying chromosphere and coronal loops.

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