We report on the detection (10 sigma) of 917 events of long-period (3 to 16 h) intensity pulsations in the 19.5 nm passband of the SOHO Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope. The data set spans from January 1997 to July 2010, i.e. the entire solar cycle 23 and the beginning of cycle 24. The events can last for up to six days and have relative amplitudes up to 100%. About half of the events (54%) are found to happen in active regions, and 50% of these have been visually associated with coronal loops. The remaining 46% are localized in the quiet Sun. We performed a comprehensive analysis of the possible instrumental artefacts and we conclude that the observed signal is of solar origin. We discuss several scenarios that could explain the main characteristics of the active region events. The long periods and the amplitudes observed rule out any explanation in terms of magnetohydrodynamic waves. Thermal non-equilibrium could produce the right periods, but it fails to explain all the observed properties of coronal loops and the spatial coherence of the events. We propose that moderate temporal variations of the heating term in the energy equation, so as to avoid a thermal non-equilibrium state, could be sufficient to explain those long-period intensity pulsations. The large number of detections suggests that these pulsations are common in active regions. This would imply that the measurement of their properties could provide new constraints on the heating mechanisms of coronal loops.

Frederic Auchere, frederic.auchere@ias.u-psud.fr IAS, CNRS / Univ. Paris Sud XI, Orsay, France Karine Bocchialini, karine.bocchialini@ias.u-psud.fr IAS, CNRS / Univ. Paris Sud XI, Orsay Cedex, France Jacques Solomon, jacques.solomon@ias.u-psud.fr IAS, CNRS / Univ. Paris Sud XI, Orsay Cedex, France Alan Gabriel, gabriel@ias.u-psud.fr IAS, CNRS / Univ. Paris Sud XI, Orsay Cedex, France Emmanuelle Tison, emmanuelle.tison@ias.u-psud.fr IAS, CNRS / Univ. Paris Sud XI, Orsay Cedex, France

AbstractRecent work on coronal polar plumes (Gabriel et al. 2003, 2005) has aimed at determining the outflow velocity in plume and interplume regions, using the Doppler dimming technique on oxygen VI observations by SUMER and UVCS on SOHO. By comparing observations of SOHO/EIT with plume modelling, we show that the major part of plumes is the result of chance alignments along the line-of-sight of small enhancements in intensity. This confirms the so-called curtain model. These plumes can be attributed to reconnection activity along the boundaries of supergranule cells. A second population of plumes has a lower abundance and arises from surface bright points having a particular magnetic configuration. New observations using the Hinode/EIS spectrometer are in progress, with the aim of providing further insight for this model.

This study is based upon plumes seen close to the solar limb within coronal holes in the emission from ions formed in the temperature region of 1 MK, in particular, the band of Fe IX 171 angstrom from EIT on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. It is shown, using geometric arguments, that two distinct classes of structure contribute to apparently similar plume observations. Quasi-cylindrical structures are anchored in discrete regions of the solar surface ( beam plumes), and faint extended structures require integration along the line of sight (LOS) in order to reproduce the observed brightness. This second category, sometimes called "curtains," are ubiquitous within the polar holes and are usually more abundant than the beam plumes, which depend more on the enhanced magnetic structures detected at their footpoints. It is here proposed that both phenomena are based on plasma structures in which emerging magnetic loops interact with ambient monopolar fields, involving reconnection. The important difference is in terms of physical scale. It is proposed that curtains are composed of a large number of microplumes, distributed along the LOS. The supergranule network provides the required spatial structure. It is shown by modeling that the observations can be reproduced if microplumes are concentrated within some 5 Mm of the cell boundaries. For this reason, we propose to call this second population " network plumes." The processes involved could represent a major contribution to the heating mechanism of the solar corona.