The Thermal Properties of Umbral Flashes
- Submitted by: Samuel Grant, Queen's University Belfast
- Authors: S. Grant
- Session: Wednesday morning posters.
Upwardly propagating slow magnetoacoustic waves are believed to be the cause of (quasi-)periodic shock brightenings in the umbrae of chromospheric sunspots. Previously, tentative evidence has been shown to suggest that umbral flashes are directly related to heightened localised temperatures within the umbral plasma. Here, the results of thermal inversions on Calcium 8542Å spectral imaging scans from the IBIS instrument at the Dunn Solar Telescope will be presented. The high spatial, spectral and temporal resolutions of the IBIS data allows for an in-depth investigation of the plasma heating abilities of (quasi-)periodic umbral flashes at unprecedented scales. Employing both imaging spectroscopy and statistical techniques on the dynamic properties of umbral flashes, their characterisation on small spatial scales and their potential contribution to the localised heating of chromospheric plasma will be discussed.