Contribution to the modeling of solar spicules Original Research Article

Solar limb and disk spicule quasi-periodic motions have been reported for a long time, strongly suggesting that they are oscillating. In order to clear up the origin and possibly explain some solar limb and disk spicule quasi-periodic recurrences produced by overlapping effects, we present a simulation model assuming quasi-random positions of spicules. We also allow a set number of spicules with different physical properties (such as: height, lifetime and tilt angle as shown by an individual spicule) occurring randomly.Results of simulations made with three different spatial resolutions of the corresponding frames and also for different number density of spicules, are analyzed. The wavelet time/frequency method is used to obtain the exact period of spicule visibility. Results are compared with observations of the chromosphere from (i) the Transition Region and Coronal Explorer (TRACE) filtergrams taken at 1600 Å, (ii) the Solar Optical Telescope (SOT) of Hinode taken in the Ca II H-line and (iii) the Sac-Peak Dunn’s VTT taken in Hα line. Our results suggest the need to be cautious when interpreting apparent oscillations seen in spicule image sequences when overlapping is present, i.e., when the spatial resolution is not enough to resolve individual components of spicules.