Persistent outflows have recently been detected at the boundaries of some active regions. Although these outflows are suggested to be possible sources of the slow solar wind, the nature of these outflows is poorly understood. Through an analy- sis of an image sequence obtained by the X-Ray Telescope onboard the Hinode spacecraft, we found that quasi-periodic outflows are present in the boundary of an active region. The flows are observed to occur intermittently, often with a period of 5-10 min. The proj ected flow speed can reach more than 200 km s^-1, while its distribution peaks around 50 km s^-1. This sporadic high-speed outflow may play an important role in the mass loading process of the slow solar wind. Our results may imply that the outflow of the slow solar wind in the boundary of the active region is intermittent and quasiperiodic in nature.
This work detects multi-scale, from hour to seconds, pressure-balanced structures (PBSs) in the solar wind based on the anti- correlation between the plasma thermal pressure and the magnetic pressure measured by WIND at 1 AU on April 5th, 2001. In our former research based on Cluster measurements, we showed the anti-correlation between the electron density and the magnetic field strength in multi-scales, and we supposed these structures may be pressure-balanced structures. Thus, in this work we aim to prove our speculation by the direct evidence on pressure measurements. Different from our previous work, we apply the WIND measurements this time, for they have both the magnetic pressure and the plasma pressure which Cluster could not offer. We use the wavelet cross-coherence method to analyze the correlation between the plasma pressure (P th ) and the magnetic pressure (P B ), and also the electron density (N e ) and the magnetic field strength (B) on various scales. We observe the anti-correlation between P th and P B distributed at different temporal scales ranging from 1000 s down to 10 s. This result directly indicates the existence of pressure- balanced structures (PBSs) with different sizes in the solar wind. Further, We compare the wavelet cross correlation spectrum of P th -P B and N e -B. We notice that the two spectra are similar in general. Thus this result confirms that the relation between P th -P B and N e -B are consistent with each other in the PBSs we study. Moreover, we compare the power spectrum density (PSD) of relative N e fluctuation with our previous work based on Cluster measurements. The two spectra show similar trend with Komolgorov's -5/3 as their slopes. This may imply the similarity of the structures observed by both WIND and Cluster spacecrafts. Finally, we discuss the possible formation mechanisms for these multi-scale pressure-balanced structures. Our result is important to support the existence of multi-scale PBSs from one-hour scale down to one-minute, and is helpful to understand
YAO ShuoTU ChuanYiHE JianSen2WEI WenBoMENG XiaoHong
Using observations from the EUV Imaging Spectrometer （EIS） onboard Hinode, we exam the plasma dynamics around the edge of the active region 10977, possibly associated with the source of nascent slow/intermediate solar wind. The correlation between the temporal profiles of the radiation intensity and Doppler shift for each emission line are analyzed. And three small regions with positive correlations for all the five emission lines are selected for a detailed analysis. In this work, Doppler blue （red） shift is defined as negative （positive）. We find that in Region 1, the radiation intensity （Doppler velocity） decreases by about 15% （about 3 km s-X）, and logarithmical differential emission measures （lg（DEMs）） reduces by about 0.06-0.10% at all temperatures, called ＂weak dimming＂, during a 30-min interval. In Region 2 and Region 3, however, the radiation intensity （Doppler velocity） increases by about 15% （about 3 km s-l）, and lg（DEMs） increases by about 0.06%~0.10% at all tempera- tures, called ＂weak brightening＂. Such weak dimming （weak brightening） could reflect a slow draining （replenishing） of plas- ma in the solar wind flux tubes, possibly due to a larger （smaller） outflow flux at high altitude than at low altitude. These sug- gest that the plasma supply could be intermittent with an alternation of draining and replenishing, for which the underlying physical process is yet unknown, at the source region of slow/intermediate solar wind.
