Quiet Sun Explosive Events: Jets, Splashes, and Eruptions

Explosive events appear as broad non-Gaussian wings in the line profiles of small transition-region phenomena. Images from the Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) give a first view of the plasma dynamics at the sites of explosive events seen simultaneously in O VI spectra of a region of quiet Sun, taken with the ultraviolet spectrometer Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation (SUMER) onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Distinct event bursts were seen either at the junction of supergranular network cells or near emerging flux. Three are described in the context of their surrounding transition region (304 angstrom) and coronal (171 angstrom) activity. One showed plasma ejections from an isolated pair of sites, with a time lag of 50 seconds between events. At the site where the later explosive event was seen, the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) images show a hot core surrounded by a small, expanding ring of chromospheric emission, which we interpret as a "splash." The second explosive-event burst was related to flux cancellation, inferred from Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager (HMI) magnetograms, and a coronal dimming surrounded by a ring of bright EUV emission with explosive events at positions where the spectrometer slit crossed the bright ring. The third series of events occurred at the base of a slow, small coronal mass ejection (mini-CME). All events studied here imply jet-like flows probably triggered by magnetic reconnection at supergranular junctions. Events come from sites close to the footpoints of jets seen in Atmospheric Imaging Assembly (AIA) images, and possibly from the landing site of high-velocity flows. They are not caused by rapid rotation in spicules.