Energy Balance and Structure Of Active Regions
With the advent of radio and space astronomy it became necessary to extend the definition of a center of activity or active region (AR) originally proposed by L. d’Azambuja. At IAU Symposium 35, K.O. Klepenheuer (1968) defined an AR as “The totality of all observable phenomena preceding, accompanying and following the birth of sunspots, including radio-, X-, EUV-, and particle emission.” The recognition that there are other short-lived bipolar features with a distribution similar to that of active regions (ephemeral active regions) by Harveyet al. (1975) and their identification with coronal bright points by Golub et al. (1975) suggests that the definition will have to be extended further. Active regions manifest themselves in the photosphere as sunspots and faculae; in the chromosphere as the plage and its structures; in the corona as a coronal enhancement with a complex, often loop-like internal structure. (The termenhancementwas Introduced by Billings. The original termpermanent coronal condensation, introduced by Waldemeler, only referred to the very bright enhancements and was, moreover, often confused with hissporadic coronal condensations, a flareassodated phenomena. The termcoronal active regionhas, recently also been used for the coronal extension of the AR.) In keeping with the aims of this symposium the stress of this review will be on the chromosphere and corona. Active regions are especially Important as the site of most flare-associated phenomena. Here we shall be concerned with flares only as they affect the overall energy balance. Our concern is with the “quiet” active regions that cause the slowly varying components of solar activity and provide the ambiance within which solar flares occur.