Does High[Plasma]-Beta Dynamics "Load" Active Regions?

Abstract

Using long-duration observations in the He II 304 Angstrom passband of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) Extreme-ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) we investigate the spatial and temporal appearance of impulsive intensity fluctuations in the pixel light curves. These passband intensity fluctuations come from plasma emitting in the chromosphere, transition region and lowest portions of the corona. We see that they are spatially tied to the supergranular scale and that their rate of occurrence is tied to the unsigned imbalance of the magnetic field in which they are observed. The signature of the fluctuations (in space and time) is consistent with their creation by magnetoconvection forced reconnection that is driven by the flow field in the high-beta plasma. The signature of the intensity fluctuations around an active region suggest that the bulk of the mass and energy supplied into the active region complex observed in the hotter coronal plasma is supplied by this process, dynamically forcing the looped structure from beneath.