Monday

It is now well known that magnetic reconnection can take place throughout the solar atmosphere on a variety of spatial and temporal scales. Recent breakthroughs in the analysis of the smallest examples of magnetic reconnection (currently observed) in the solar atmosphere has been facilitated by the development of state-of-the-art instrumentation (such as the CRisp Imaging SpectroPolarimeter [CRISP] and the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph [IRIS]), which are capable of sampling the lower solar atmosphere on scales close to 100 km. These instruments allow us to observe the evolution of reconnection events in exquisite detail and provide information about the local magnetic field during the reconnection itself. In this talk, we will review our current understanding of small-scale explosive reconnection events in the solar atmosphere including Ellerman bombs (EBs), IRIS bursts (IBs), and Quiet-Sun Ellerman-like Brightenings (QSEBs). The specific observational signatures of these events, and their general properties, will be presented before their links to cancelling bi-poles in the solar photosphere will be discussed. We will also investigate one of the key questions currently puzzling both observers and modellers in the small-scale reconnection community: How do EBs (which form at temperatures below 10000 K) and IBs (which appear to have temperatures of between 20000 K and 80000 K) form at the same spatial locations? Is this evidence of multi-thermal reconnection, or plasmoids, or reconnection at different heights in the solar atmosphere projected onto each other on 2-d plane? Finally, we will present a brief overview of recent modelling efforts.