KASI and Seoul National University developed the Fast Imaging Solar Spectrograph (FISS) as one of major scientific instruments for the 1.6 m New Solar Telescope (NST) and installed it in the Coude room of the NST at Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) in May, 2010. The major objective of the FISS is to study the fine-scale structures and dynamics of plasma in the photosphere and chromosphere. To achieve it, the FISS is required to take data with a spectral resolution higher than 105 at the spectrograph mode and a temporal resolution less than 10 seconds at the imaging mode. The FISS is a spectrograph using Echelle grating and has characteristics that can observe dual bands (Hα and CaII 8542) simultaneously and perform fast imaging using fast raster scan and two fast CCD cameras. In this paper, we introduce briefly the whole process of FISS development from the requirement analysis to the first observations.

We investigate how plasma structures in the solar chromosphere and corona can extend to altitudes much above hydrostatic scale heights from the solar surface even under the force of gravity. Using a simple modified form of equation of motion in the vertical direction, we argue that there are two extreme ways of non-hydrostatic support: dynamical support and magnetic support. If the vertical acceleration is downward and its magnitude is a significant fraction of gravitational acceleration, non-hydrostatic support is dynamical in nature. Otherwise non-hydrostatic support is static, and magnetic support by horizontal magnetic fields is the only other possibility. We describe what kind of observations are needed in the clarification of the nature of non-hydrostatic support. Observations available so far seem to indicate that spicules in the quiet regions and dynamic fibrils in active regions are dynamically supported whereas the general chromosphere as well as prorninences is magnetically supported. Moreover, it appears that magnetic support is required for plasma in some coronal loops as well. We suspect that the identification of a coronal loop with a simple magnetic flux tube might be wrong in this regard.

Spectral line profiles of filaments/prominences to be observed by the Fast Imaging Solar Spectrograph (FISS) are studied. The main spectral lines of interests are Hα Ca II 8542, and Ca II K. FISS has a high spectral resolving power of 2 x 105, and supports simultaneous dual-band recording. This instrument will be installed at the 1.6m New Solar Telescope (NST) of Big Bear Solar Observatory, which has a high spatial resolution of 0.065" at 500nm. Adopting the cloud model of radiative transfer and using the model parameters inferred from pre-existing observations, we have simulated a set of spectral profiles of the lines that are emitted by a filament on the disk or a prominence at the limb. Taking into account the parameters of the instrument, we have estimated the photon count to be recorded by the CCD cameras, the signal-to-noise ratios, and so on. We have also found that FISS is suitable for the study of multi-velocity threads in filaments if the spectral profiles of Ca II lines are recorded together with Hα lines

We have analyzed the comet records in the Korean history books: Samguksagi, Goryeosa, and Joseonwangjosillok. For a comparison, the Chinese and Japanese comet records collected by Kronk (1999) have also been analyzed. Power spectrum of the time series of the comet records is used to find periodic comets. Statistically significant periodicities in the power spectrum are detected at the periods of 38-40 years, about 76 years, and 300-400 years for all Korean, Chinese, and Japanese comet records. We have also calculated the past orbits of some comets that have been recently observed, to check whether or not they were recorded in the history books. We use a multistep method to numerically integrate the comet's orbital motion backward in time to 51 B.C. The gravitational force due to the Sun and the nine planets, non-gravitational force, and the relativistic effects have been considered. Comparison of comet's perihelion passage time and the position on the sky with the historical records shows that the comet Halley were recorded at every passage in both Goryeo and Joseon periods. The orbital motion of the comet Pons-Brooks has also been compared with the Korean records. For the comet Tempel-Tuttle, Swift-Tuttle, and Ikeya-Zhang, we have compared our calculation of the orbital motions with those of the previous studies.

The basic building block of solar filaments/prominences is thin threads of cool plasma. We have studied the spectral properties of velocity threads, clusters of thinner density threads moving together, by analyzing a sequence of Hα images of a quiescent filament. The images were taken at Big Bear Solar Observatory with the Lyot filter being successively tuned to wavelengths of -0.6, -0.3, 0.0, +0.3, and +0.6 Åfrom the centerline. The spectra of contrast constructed from the image data at each spatial point were analyzed using cloud models with a single velocity component, or three velocity components. As a result, we have identified a couple of velocity threads that are characterized by a narrow Doppler width (ΔλDÅ=0.27), a moderate value of optical thickness at the Hα absorption peak(T0=0.3) and a spatial width(FWHM) of about 1". It has also been inferred that there exist 4-6 velocity threads along the line of sight at each spatial resolution element inside the filament. In about half of the threads, matter moves fast with a line-of-sight speed of 15±3 km s-1, but in the other half it is either at rest or slowly moving with a line-of-sight velocity of 0±3 km s-1. It is found that a statistical balance approximately holds between the numbers of blue-shifted threads and red-shifted threads, and any imbalance between the two numbers is responsible for the non-zero line-of-sight velocity determined using a single-component model fit. Our results support the existence not only of high speed counter-streaming flows, but also of a significant amount of cool matter either being at rest or moving slowly inside the filament.

Recently a big progress has been made on the measurements of magnetic helicity of solar active regions based on photospheric magnetograms . In this paper, we present the details of Chae's method of determining the rate of helicity transfer using line-of-sight magnetograms such as taken by SORO /MDI. The method is specifically applied to full-disk magnetograms that are routinely taken at 96-minute cadence.

It has been a big mystery what drives filament eruptions and flares. We have studied in detail an X1.8 flare and its associated filament eruption that occurred in NOAA Active Region 9236 on November 24,2000. For this work we have analyzed high temporal (about 1 minute) and spatial (about 1 arcsec) resolution images taken by Michelson Doppler Imager (MDI) onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, Hα centerline and blue wing (-0.6Å) images from Big Bear Solar Observatory, and 1600 Å UV images by the Transition Region and Corona Explorer (TRACE). We have found that there were several transient brightenings seen in Hα and, more noticeably in TRACE 1600 Å images around the preflare phase. A closer look at the UV brightenings in 1600 Å images reveals that they took place near one end of the erupting filament, and are a kind of jets supplying mass into the transient loops seen in 1600 Å. These brightenings were also associated with canceling magnetic features (CMFs) as seen in the MDI magnetograms. The flux variations of these CMFs suggest that the flux cancellation may have been driven by the emergence of the new flux. For this event, we have estimated the ejection speeds of the filament ranging from 10 to 160 km s-1 for the first twenty minutes. It is noted that the initiation of the filament eruption (as defined by the rise speed less than 20 km s-1) coincided with the preflare activity characterized by UV brightenings and CMFs. The speed of the associated LASCO CME can be well extrapolated from the observed filament speed and its direction is consistent with those of the disturbed UV loops associated with the preflare activity. Supposing the Hα/UV transient brightenings and the canceling magnetic features are due to magnetic reconnect ion in the low atmosphere, our results may be strong observational evidence supporting that the initiation of the filament eruption and the preflare phase of the associated flare may be physically related to low-atmosphere magnetic reconnection.

In this paper, we review recent studies on the magnetic helicity changes of solar active regions by photospheric horizontal motions. Recently, Chae(200l) developed a methodology to determine the magnetic helicity change rate via photospheric horizontal motions. We have applied this methodology to four cases: (1) NOAA AR 8100 which has a series of homologous X-ray flares, (2) three active regions which have four eruptive major X-ray flares, (3) NOAA AR 9236 which has three eruptive X-class flares, and (4) NOAA AR 8668 in which a large filament was under formation. As a result, we have found several interesting results. First, the rate of magnetic helicity injection strongly depends on an active region and its evolution. Its mean rate ranges from 4 to 17 × 10 40 Mx2 h-1. Especially when the homologous flares occurred and when the filament was formed, significant rates of magnetic helicity were continuously deposited in the corona via photospheric shear flows. Second, there is a strong positive correlation between the magnetic helicity accumulated during the flaring time interval of the homologous flares in AR 8100 and the GOES X-ray flux integrated over the flaring time. This indicates that the occurrence of a series of homologous flares is physically related to the accumulation of magnetic helicity in the corona by photospheric shearing motions. Third, impulsive helicity variations took place near the flaring times of some strong flares. These impulsive variations whose time scales are less than one hour are attributed to localized velocity kernels around the polarity inversion line. Fourth, considering the filament eruption associated with an X1.8 flare started about 10 minutes before the impulsive variation of the helicity change rate, we suggest that the impulsive helicity variation is not a cause of the eruptive solar flare but its result. Finally, we discuss the physical implications on these results and our future plans.

In the present study, we have investigated morphology and evolution of small-scale Ha dynamic features on the quiet sun by analyzing video magnetograms and high resolution Ha images simultaneously taken for 5 hours at Big Bear Solar Observatory on April 18, 1997. From comparisons between time sequential longitudinal magnetograms and Hα images covering 150" × 150", several small-scale Hα dynamic features have been observed at a site of magnetic flux cancellation. A close relationship between such features and cancelling magnetic fluxes has been revealed temporarily and spatially. Our results support that material injection by chromospheric magnetic reconnect ion may be essential in supporting numerous small-scale Hα dynamical absorption features, being in line with recent observational studies showing that material injection by chromospheric magnetic reconnect ion is essential for the formation of solar filaments.

Observations have indicated that magnetic reconnect ion may occur frequently in the photosphere and chromosphere as well as in the solar corona. The observed features include cancelling magnetic features seen in photospheric magnetograms, and different kinds of small-scale activities such as UV explosive events and EUV jets. By integrating the observed parameters of these features with the Sweet-Parker reconnect ion theory, an attempt is made to clarify the nature of chromospheric magnetic reconnection. Our results suggest that magnetic reconnect ion may be occurring at many different levels of the photosphere and chromosphere without a preferred height and at a faster speed than is predicted by the Sweet-Parker reconnect ion model using the classical value of electric conductivity. Introducing an anomalous magnetic diffusivity 10-100 times the classical value is one of the possible ways of explaining the fast reconnect ion as inferred from observations.

Recent observations have shown that coronal magnetic fields in the northern (southern) hemisphere tend to have negative (positive) magnetic helicity. There has been controversy as to whether this hemispheric pattern is of surface or sub-surface origin. A number of studies have focused on clarifying the effect of the surface differential rotation on the change of magnetic helicity in the corona. Meanwhile, recent observational studies reported the existence of transient shear flows in active regions that can feed magnetic helicity to the corona at a much higher rate than the differential rotation does. Here we propose that such transient shear flows may be driven by the torque produced by either the axial or radial expansion of the coronal segment of a twisted flux tube that is rooted deeply below the surface. We have derived a simple relation between the coronal expansion parameter and the amount of helicity transferred via shear flows. To demonstrate our proposition, we have inspected Yohkoh soft X-ray images of NOAA 8668 in which strong shear flows were observed. As a result, we found that the expansion of magnetic fields really took place in the corona while transient shear flows were observed in the photosphere, and the amount of magnetic helicity change due to the transient shear flows is quantitatively consistent with the observed expansion of coronal magnetic fields. The transient shear flows hence may be understood as an observable manifestation of the pumping of magnetic helicity out of the interior portions of the field lines driven by the expansion of coronal parts as was originally proposed by Parker (1974).

Solar observations support that magnetic reconnect ion ubiquitously occurs in the chromosphere as well as in the corona. It is now widely accepted that coronal magnetic reconnect ion is fast reconnect ion of the Petschek type, and is the main driver of solar flares. On the other hand, it has been thought that the traditional Sweet-Parker model may describe chromospheric reconnect ion without difficulty, since the electric conductivity in the chromoshphere is much lower than that in the corona. However, recent observations of cancelling magnetic features have suggested that chromospheric reconnect ion might proceed at a faster rate than the Sweet-Parker model predicts. We have applied the Sweet-Parker model and Petschek model to a well-observed cancelling magnetic feature. As a result, we found that the inflow speed of the Sweet-Parker reconnect ion is too small to explain the observed converging speed of the feature. On the other hand, the inflow speeds and outflow speeds of the Petschek reconnect ion are well compatible with observations. Moreover, we found that the Sweet-Parker type current sheet is subject to the ion-acoustic instability in the chromosphere, implying the Petschek mechanism may operate there. Our results strongly suggest that chromospheric reconnect ion is of the Petschek type.

We have investigated one dimensional steady flow model of a typical magnetic flux tube in the solar transition region constrained to observed Differential Emission Measure (DEM) for the average quiet-Sun deduced by Raymond & Doyle (1981) with a flux tube geometry conforming to Doppler shifts of UV lines measured by Chae, Yun & Poland (1998). Because local heating and filling factor in the transition region are not well known, we considered two extreme cases, one characterized by the filling factor= 1 ('filled-up model') and the other set by local heating=0 ('not-heated model'). We examined how much the heating is required for the flux tube by recomputing a model through adjustment of the filling factor in such a way that 'not-heated model' accounts for the observed DEM.

We have done a spectroscopic study of the solar transition region using high resolution UV & EUV data obtained by SUMER(Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation) on board SOHO(Solar and Heliospheric Observatory). Optically thin and conspicuous emission lines observed at the solar limb are carefully selected to acquire average values of physical parameters for the quiet region as a function of radial distance. Our main results found from the present study can be summarized as follows. 1) Nonthermal velocities estimated from various UV lines do not decrease with height at least within one total line intensity scale height above the limb. 2) Nonthermal velocity distribution with temperature is very similar to that of the disk center, in the sense that its peak is located around 2 × 10 5 K, but the value is systematically larger than that of the disk. 3) It is found that nonthermal velocity is inversely proportional. to quadratic root of electron density up to about 10 arc seconds above the limb, i.e. ℇ~Ne-1/4, implying that the observed nonthermal broadening can be attributed to Alfven waves passing through the medium. 41 Electron density estimated from the O V 629/760 line ratio is found to range from about 1×10 10cm-3 to 2 × 10 12cm-3 in the transition region.

Recent studies show the importance of understanding three-dimensional magnetic reconnect ion on the solar surface. For this purpose, I consider non-coplanar magnetic reconnection, a simple case of three-dimensional reconnect ion driven by a collision of two straight flux tubes which are not on the same plane initially. The relative angle e between the two tubes characterizes such reconnection, and can be regarded as a measure of magnetic shear. The observable characteristics of non-coplanar reconnection are compared between the two cases of small and large angles. An important feature of the non-coplanar reconnect ion is that magnetic twist can be produced via the re-ordering of field lines. This is a consequence of the conversion of mutual helicity into self helicities by reconnection. It is shown that the principle of energy conservation when combined with the production of magnetic twist puts a low limit on the relative angle between two flux tubes for reconnect ion to occur. I provide several observations supporting the magnetic twist generation by reconnection, and discuss its physical implications for the origin of magnetic twist on the solar surface and the problem of coronal heating.

The ionization degree of hydrogen is crucial in the physics of the plasma in the solar chromosphere. It specifically limits the range of plasma temperatures that can be determined from the Hα line. Given that the chromosphere greatly deviates from the local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) condition, precise determinations of hydrogen ionization require the solving of the full set of non-LTE radiative transfer equations throughout the atmosphere, which is usually a formidable task. In many cases, it is still necessary to obtain a quick estimate of hydrogen ionization without having to solve for the non-LTE radiative transfer. Here, we present a simple method to meet this need. We adopt the assumption that the photoionizing radiation field changes little over time, even if physical conditions change locally. With this assumption, the photoionization rate can be obtained from a published atmosphere model and can be used to determine the degree of hydrogen ionization when the temperature and electron density are specified. The application of our method indicates that in the chromospheric environment, plasma features contain more than 10% neutral hydrogen at temperatures lower than 17,000 K but less than 1% neutral hydrogen at temperatures higher than 23,000 K, implying that the hydrogen temperature determined from the Hα line is physically plausible if it is lower than 20,000 K, but may not be real, if it is higher than 25,000 K. We conclude that our method can be readily exploited to obtain a quick estimate of hydrogen ionization in plasma features in the solar chromosphere.