The correlation of synthetic UV color vs Mg II index along the solar cycle

Abstract

Modeling of planets' climate and habitability requires as fundamental input the UV emission of the hosting star. \citet{lovric2017} employed SORCE/SOLSTICE solar observations to introduce a UV color index which is a descriptor of the UV radiation that modulates the photochemistry of planets atmospheres. After correcting the SOLSTICE data for residual instrumental effects that produced asymmetric signals during different phases of the cycles analyzed, the authors found that the UV color index is linearly correlated with the Mg II index.In this paper we employ an irradiance reconstruction technique to synthetize the UV color and Mg II index with the purpose of investigating whether the correction applied by \citet{lovric2017} to SORCE/SOLSTICE data might have compensated for solar variations, and to investigate the physical mechanisms that produce such a strong correlation between the UV color index and the solar activity. Reconstructed indices reproduce very well the observations and present the same strong linear dependence. Moreover our reconstruction, which extends back to 1989, shows that the UV color - Mg II index relation can be described by the same linear relation for almost three cycles, thus ruling out an overcompensation of SORCE/SOLTICE data in the analysis of \citet{lovric2017}. We suggest that the strong correlation between the indices results from the fact that most of the Far- and Middle- UV radiation originates in the chromosphere, where atmosphere models of quiet and magnetic features present similar temperature and density gradients.