Research Projects

Magnetic reconnection occurs when magnetic field lines change topology in a highly conducting medium such as plasma. Due to magnetic reconnection, part of magnetic energy transforms into other energy forms, such as thermal and kinetic energy. For most dynamic and transient events in the solar atmosphere, magnetic reconnection is the fundamental mechanism, for example, flares, coronal mass ejections, jets, Ellerman bombs, ultraviolet bursts, and x-ray bright points. Ellerman bombs are small-scale magnetic reconnection events observed in the solar lower atmosphere, predominantly found in magnetically active regions. Very recently, the counterpart of active region Ellerman bombs has been discovered in quiet-Sun and is known as quiet-Sun Ellerman bombs. So far, quiet- Sun Ellerman bombs are the signature of the smallest magnetic reconnection events observed in the solar lower atmosphere, and our understanding of this phenomenon is still somewhat limited. Studying ubiquitous quiet-Sun Ellerman bombs was not possible until very recently due to their sub-arcsecond size, which makes them difficult to resolve. The proposed project will be able to study the fundamental process of magnetic reconnection at the smallest observable scale with the new era high-resolution solar observing facilities like the CHROMospheric imaging spectrometer at the Swedish 1-m solar telescope. The proposed project will also use advanced 3D radiation magnetohydrodynamic simulations to understand the origin and formation of quite-Sun Ellerman bombs, which is the primary objective of the project. Quiet- Sun Ellerman bomb might play an important role in heating the chromosphere and corona; hence a comprehensive understanding of this phenomenon could help in providing clues or in solving the long-standing problems in solar physics.