ESP Online Seminar: Penumbral brightening events (Mariarita Murabito)

We studied brightening events observed in the penumbra of one among the largest sunspots emerged into the solar atmosphere over the last activity cycle, by using multi-wavelength observations from the IBIS spectropolarimeter and instruments onboard the SDO, IRIS, and Hinode satellites. We focused on the evolution of a penumbral area that was adjacent to two small-scale emerging flux regions (EFRs). We found that these regions and short-living magnetic features (MMFs) moving away from the penumbra led to reconfiguration of the magnetic fields in the studied area. Besides, we found that the studied brightening events likely derived from reconnection processes occurred at different atmospheric heights that were activated by the interaction of the pre-existing fields with either the EFRs or MMFs.