Solar ALMA observations: constraining the chromosphere above sunspots
by M. Loukitcheva et al.*
Our understanding of sunspots is far from complete despite intensive research over hundreds of years. Radiation at submillimeter and millimeter wavelengths is formed in local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) in the low to mid chromosphere, and its intensity depends linearly on the ambient temperature of the medium. Observations at these wavelengths thus provide important diagnostics of sunspot chromospheres (Loukitcheva et al. 2014). The largest radio telescope in the world, the Atacama […]