Scientific instrumentation for the 1.6 m New Solar Telescope in Big Bear

Cao, Wenda; Gorceix, Nicolas; Coulter, R.; Ahn, Kwangsu; Rimmelé, Thomas; Goode, Philip R.

doi:10.1002/asna.201011390

Cited by 239 publications

(199 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…In this paper, we use high-resolution spectral data of Hα and Ca II 8542Å lines, which were obtained on 2013 June 6 with the largest aperture solar telescope in the world, the 1.6 meter off-axis New Solar Telescope (NST) (Goode et al 2012;Cao et al 2010) at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO). The characteristics of three well-observed small EBs are analyzed.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diagnostics of Ellerman bombs with high-resolution spectral data

Fang

Guo

et al. 2015

Res. Astron. Astrophys.

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Ellerman bombs (EBs) are tiny brightenings often observed near sunspots. The most impressive characteristic of the EB spectra is the two emission bumps in both wings of the Hα and Ca II 8542Å lines. High-resolution spectral data of three small EBs were obtained on 2013 June 6 with the largest solar telescope, the 1.6 meter New Solar Telescope (NST), at the Big Bear Solar Observatory. The characteristics of these EBs are analyzed. The sizes of the EBs are in the range of 0.3 ′′ -0.8 ′′ and their durations are only 3-5 minutes. Our semi-empirical atmospheric models indicate that the heating occurs around the temperature minimum region with a temperature increase of 2700-3000 K, which is surprisingly higher than previously thought. The radiative and kinetic energies are estimated to be as high as 5×10 25 -3.0×10 26 ergs despite the small size of these EBs. Observations of the magnetic field show that the EBs appeared just in a parasitic region with mixed polarities and accompanied by mass motions. Nonlinear force-free field extrapolation reveals that the three EBs are connected with a series of magnetic field lines associated with bald patches, which strongly implies that these EBs should be produced by magnetic reconnection in the solar lower atmosphere. According to the lightcurves and the estimated magnetic reconnection rate, we propose that there is a three phase process in EBs: pre-heating, flaring and cooling phases.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diagnostics of Ellerman bombs with high-resolution spectral data

Fang

Guo

et al. 2015

Res. Astron. Astrophys.

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“…Observing small-scale activity with 10830 Å triplet is a timely topic with the advent of the 1.6 m aperture New Solar Telescope at the Big Bear Solar Observatory (NST/BBSO; Goode et al 2010a;Cao et al 2010b). Its off-axis design can vastly reduce stray light since there is no central obscuration.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observation of Magnetic Reconnection Driven by Granular Scale Advection

Zeng

Cao

2013

ApJ

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We report the first evidence of magnetic reconnection driven by advection in a rapidly developing large granule using high spatial resolution observations of a small surge event (base size ∼ 4 × 4 ) with the 1.6 m aperture New Solar Telescope at the Big Bear Solar Observatory. The observations were carried out in narrowband (0.5 Å) He i 10830 Å and broadband (10 Å) TiO 7057 Å. Since He i 10830 Å triplet has a very high excitation level and is optically thin, its filtergrams enable us to investigate the surge from the photosphere through the chromosphere into the lower corona. Simultaneous space data from the Atmospheric Imaging Assembly and Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory were used in the analysis. It is shown that the surge is spatio-temporally associated with magnetic flux emergence in the rapidly developing large granule. During the development of the granule, its advecting flow (∼2 km s −1 ) squeezed the magnetic flux into an intergranular lane area, where a magnetic flux concentration was formed and the neighboring flux with opposite magnetic polarity was canceled. During the cancellation, the surge was produced as absorption in He i 10830 Å filtergrams while simultaneous EUV brightening occurred at its base. The observations clearly indicate evidence of a finest-scale reconnection process driven by the granule's motion.

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“…We study the 22 June 2015 M6.5 flare (SOL2015-06-22T18:23) using Hα (line-center and red-wing) images and photospheric vector magnetograms obtained by the recently commissioned 1.6 m New Solar Telescope (NST) 21,22 at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO), which is stabilized by a high-order adaptive optics (AO) system (see Methods). In particular, the vector field data is taken by the Near InfraRed Imaging Spectropolarimeter (NIRIS) 23 at the 1.56µ Fe I line.…”

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confidence: 99%

High-resolution observations of flare precursors in the low solar atmosphere

et al. 2017

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Solar flares are generally believed to be powered by free magnetic energy stored in the corona 1 , but the build up of coronal energy alone may be insufficient for the imminent flare occurrence 2 . The flare onset mechanism is a critical but less understood problem, insights into which could be gained from small-scale energy releases known as precursors, which are observed as small pre-flare brightenings in various wavelengths (e.g., refs 3-13 ), and also from certain small-scale magnetic configurations such as the opposite polarity fluxes [14][15][16] , where magnetic orientation of small bipoles is opposite to that of the ambient main polarities. However, high-resolution observations of flare precursors together with the associated photospheric magnetic field dynamics are lacking. Here we study precursors of a flare using unprecedented spatiotemporal resolution of the 1.6 m New Solar Telescope, complemented by novel microwave data. Two episodes of precursor brightenings are initiated at a small-scale magnetic channel 17-20 (a form of opposite polarity fluxes) with multiple polarity inversions and enhanced magnetic fluxes and currents, lying near the footpoints of sheared magnetic loops. The low-atmospheric origin of these precursor emissions is corroborated by microwave spectra. We propose that the emerging magnetic channel field interacts with the sheared arcades to cause precursor brightenings at the main flare core region. These high-resolution results provide evidence of low-atmospheric small-scale energy release and possible relationship to the onset of the main flare.We study the 22 June 2015 M6.5 flare (SOL2015-06-22T18:23) using Hα (line-center and red-wing) images and photospheric vector magnetograms obtained by the recently commissioned 1.6 m New Solar Telescope (NST) 21, 22 at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO), which is stabilized by a high-order adaptive optics (AO) system (see Methods). In particular, the vector field data is taken by the Near InfraRed Imaging Spectropolarimeter (NIRIS) 23 at the 1.56µ Fe I line. These observations have the highest spatial resolution ever achieved for the solar observations (∼70 km for Hα and ∼170 km for vector field) and rapid cadence (28 s for Hα and 87 s for vector field). Also used are flare microwave spectra and time profiles from the new Expanded Owens Valley Solar Array (EOVSA; see Methods), and time profiles of hard X-ray (HXR) and soft X-ray (SXR) fluxes from the Reuven Ramaty High Energy Solar Spectroscopic Imager (RHESSI) 24 and the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES)-15, respectively. Ancillary data of full-disk corona images and magnetograms from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) 25 are additionally used. The long-duration 22 June 2015 M6.5 flare occurred near the disk center (8• W, 12• N) at NOAA active region (AR) 12371. Time profiles of flare emissions in different wavelengths (including HXR, SXR, and microwave) clearly display that soon before the flare impulsive phase starting from ∼17:51 UT, there are two short ep...

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Scientific instrumentation for the 1.6 m New Solar Telescope in Big Bear

Cited by 239 publications

References 3 publications

Diagnostics of Ellerman bombs with high-resolution spectral data

Diagnostics of Ellerman bombs with high-resolution spectral data

Observation of Magnetic Reconnection Driven by Granular Scale Advection

High-resolution observations of flare precursors in the low solar atmosphere

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