Temperature-height graph for solar atmosphere

The solar transition region is a region of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared rad ...

's atmosphere between the upper

chromosphere A chromosphere ("sphere of color") is the second layer of a star's atmosphere, located above the photosphere and below the solar transition region and corona. The term usually refers to the Sun's chromosphere, but not exclusively. In the S ...

and corona. It is important because it is the site of several unrelated but important transitions in the physics of the solar atmosphere: * Below, gravity tends to dominate the shape of most features, so that the Sun may often be described in terms of layers and horizontal features (like sunspots); above, dynamic forces dominate the shape of most features, so that the transition region itself is not a well-defined layer at a particular altitude. * Below, most of the helium is not fully ionized, so that it radiates energy very effectively; above, it becomes fully ionized. This has a profound effect on the equilibrium temperature (see below). * Below, the material is opaque to the particular colors associated with

spectral line A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to iden ...

s, so that most spectral lines formed below the transition region are

absorption line A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to ident ...

s in

infrared Infrared (IR), sometimes called infrared light, is electromagnetic radiation (EMR) with wavelengths longer than those of visible light. It is therefore invisible to the human eye. IR is generally understood to encompass wavelengths from aroun ...

visible light Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm), corresponding to frequencies of 750–420 tera ...

, and near ultraviolet, while most lines formed at or above the transition region are

emission line A spectral line is a dark or bright line in an otherwise uniform and continuous spectrum, resulting from emission or absorption of light in a narrow frequency range, compared with the nearby frequencies. Spectral lines are often used to iden ...

s in the far ultraviolet (FUV) and

X-ray X-rays (or rarely, ''X-radiation'') are a form of high-energy electromagnetic radiation. In many languages, it is referred to as Röntgen radiation, after the German scientist Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen, who discovered it in 1895 and named it ' ...

s. This makes

radiative transfer Radiative transfer is the physical phenomenon of energy transfer in the form of electromagnetic radiation. The propagation of radiation through a medium is affected by absorption, emission, and scattering processes. The equation of radiative trans ...

of energy within the transition region very complicated. * Below,

gas pressure In a mixture of gases, each constituent gas has a partial pressure which is the notional pressure of that constituent gas as if it alone occupied the entire volume of the original mixture at the same temperature. The total pressure of an ideal ga ...

and

fluid dynamics In physics and engineering, fluid dynamics is a subdiscipline of fluid mechanics that describes the flow of fluids—liquids and gases. It has several subdisciplines, including '' aerodynamics'' (the study of air and other gases in motion) ...

usually dominate the motion and shape of structures; above, magnetic forces dominate the motion and shape of structures, giving rise to different simplifications of

magnetohydrodynamics Magnetohydrodynamics (MHD; also called magneto-fluid dynamics or hydromagnetics) is the study of the magnetic properties and behaviour of electrically conducting fluids. Examples of such magnetofluids include plasmas, liquid metals ...

. The transition region itself is not well studied in part because of the computational cost, uniqueness, and complexity of Navier–Stokes combined with

electrodynamics In physics, electromagnetism is an interaction that occurs between particles with electric charge. It is the second-strongest of the four fundamental interactions, after the strong force, and it is the dominant force in the interactions o ...

. Helium

ionization Ionization, or Ionisation is the process by which an atom or a molecule acquires a negative or positive Electric charge, charge by gaining or losing electrons, often in conjunction with other chemical changes. The resulting electrically charged a ...

is important because it is a critical part of the formation of the corona: when solar material is cool enough that the helium within it is only partially ionized (i.e. retains one of its two

electron The electron (, or in nuclear reactions) is a subatomic particle with a negative one elementary electric charge. Electrons belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family, and are generally thought to be elementary partic ...

s), the material cools by radiation very effectively via both

black-body radiation Black-body radiation is the thermal electromagnetic radiation within, or surrounding, a body in thermodynamic equilibrium with its environment, emitted by a black body (an idealized opaque, non-reflective body). It has a specific, continuous sp ...

and direct coupling to the helium Lyman continuum. This condition holds at the top of the

, where the equilibrium temperature is a few tens of thousands of

kelvin The kelvin, symbol K, is the primary unit of temperature in the International System of Units (SI), used alongside its prefixed forms and the degree Celsius. It is named after the Belfast-born and University of Glasgow-based engineer and ph ...

s. Applying slightly more heat causes the helium to ionize fully, at which point it ceases to couple well to the Lyman continuum and does not radiate nearly as effectively. The temperature jumps up rapidly to nearly one million kelvin, the temperature of the solar corona. This phenomenon is called the ''temperature catastrophe'' and is a

phase transition In chemistry, thermodynamics, and other related fields, a phase transition (or phase change) is the physical process of transition between one state of a medium and another. Commonly the term is used to refer to changes among the basic states ...

analogous to boiling water to make steam; in fact, solar physicists refer to the process as ''evaporation'' by analogy to the more familiar process with water. Likewise, if the amount of heat being applied to coronal material is slightly reduced, the material very rapidly cools down past the temperature catastrophe to around one hundred thousand kelvin, and is said to have ''condensed''. The transition region consists of material at or around this temperature catastrophe.

References

External links

Animated explanation of the Transition Region (and Chromosphere)
(University of South Wales).

(University of South Wales). {{The Sun Plasma physics Space plasmas Transition region Light sources

See also

References

External links