The Emission Heights of Transition Region Lines in an Equatorial Coronal Hole and the Surrounding Quiet Sun

Using the correlation between the radiance or Doppler velocity and the extrapolated magnetic field, we determined the emission heights of a set of solar transition region lines in an equatorial coronal hole and in the surrounding quiet Sun region. We found that for all of the six lower-transition-region lines, the emission height is about 4–5 Mm in the equatorial coronal hole, and around 2 Mm in the quiet Sun region. This result confirms the previous findings that plasma with different temperature can coexist at the same layer of transition region. In the quiet Sun region, the emission height of the upper-transition-region line Ne VIII is almost the same that of the lower-transition-region line, but in the coronal hole, it is twice as high. This difference reveals that the outflow of Ne VIII is a signature of solar wind in the coronal hole and is just a mass supply to the large loops in the quiet Sun.