Connecting Atmospheric Properties and Synthetic Emission of Shock Waves Using 3D RMHD Simulations of Quiet Sun

We report the analysis of the evolution of shock waves in high-resolution 3D radiative MHD simulations of the quiet Sun and their synthetic emission characteristics. The simulations model the dynamics of a 12.8x12.8x15.2 Mm quiet-Sun region (including a 5.2 Mm layer of the upper convection zone and a 10 Mm atmosphere from the photosphere to corona) with an initially uniform vertical magnetic field of 10 G, naturally driven by convective flows. We synthesize the Mg II and C II spectral lines observed by the IRIS satellite and the EUV emission observed by the SDO/AIA telescope. Synthetic observations are obtained using the RH1.5D radiative transfer code and temperature response functions at numerical and instrumental resolutions. We found that Doppler velocity jumps of the C II 1334.5 Å IRIS line and a relative enhancement of the emission in the 335 Å SDO/AIA channel are the best proxies for the enthalpy deposited by shock waves into the corona (with Kendall’s τ correlation coefficients of 0.59 and 0.38, respectively). The synthetic emission of the lines and the extreme ultraviolet passbands are correlated during shock wave propagation. All studied shocks are mostly hydrodynamic (i.e., the magnetic energy carried by horizontal fields is ≤ 2.6% of the enthalpy for all events) and have Mach numbers > 1.0-1.2 in the low corona. We also discuss the potential impact of non-equilibrium excitation and ionization processes on the results of this work in terms of the H and Mg II spectral line profile shapes, the plasma ionization degree, and the resulting discrepancies in the internal energy and gas pressure.