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Within the coronae of stars, abundances of those elements with low first ionization potential (FIP) often differ from their photospheric values. The coronae of the Sun and solar-type stars mostly show enhancements of low-FIP elements (the FIP effect) while more active stars such as M dwarfs have coronae generally characterized by the inverse-FIP (I-FIP) effect. Highly localized regions of I-FIP effect solar plasma have been observed by Hinode/EIS in a number of highly complex active regions, usually around strong light bridges of the umbrae of coalescing/merging sunspots. These observations can be interpreted in the context of the ponderomotive force fractionation model which predicts that plasma with I-FIP effect composition is created by the refraction of waves coming from below the plasma fractionation region in the chromosphere. A plausible source of these waves is thought to be reconnection in the (high-plasma \b{eta}) subchromospheric magnetic field. In this study, we use the 3D visualization technique of Chintzoglou & Zhang (2013) combined with observations of localized I-FIP effect in the corona of AR 11504 to identify potential sites of such reconnection and its possible consequences in the solar atmosphere. We found subtle signatures of episodic heating and reconnection outflows in the expected places, in between magnetic flux tubes forming a light bridge, within the photosphere of the active region. Furthermore, on either side of the light bridge, we observed small antiparallel horizontal magnetic field components supporting the possibility of reconnection occuring where we observe I-FIP plasma. When taken together with the I-FIP effect observations, these subtle signatures provide a compelling case for indirect observational evidence of reconnection below the fractionation layer of the chromosphere, however, direct evidence remains elusive., Comment: Accepted ApJ

We present a study of spectral line width measurements from the Extreme Ultraviolet Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) on {\it Hinode}. We used spectral line profiles of Fe {\sc xvi} 262.984 {\AA}, Fe {\sc xiv} 264.787 {\AA}, Fe {\sc xiv} 270.519 {\AA}, Fe {\sc xiv} 274.203 {\AA}, and Fe {\sc xv} 284.160 {\AA}, and studied 11 active regions. Previous studies of spectral line widths have shown that in hot loops in the cores of active regions, the observed non-thermal velocities are smaller than predicted from models of reconnection jets in the corona or shock heating associated with Alfv\'{e}n waves. The observed line widths are also inconsistent with models of chromospheric evaporation due to coronal nanoflares. We show that recent advances in higher resolution Alfv\'{e}n wave turbulence modeling enables us to obtain non-thermal velocities similar to those measured in active regions. The observed non-thermal velocities for the 11 active regions in our study are in the range of 17$-$30 $\rm km ~ s^{-1}$, consistent with the spectral line non-thermal widths predicted from our model of 16 interacting flux tubes, which are in the range of ~15$-$37 $\rm km ~ s^{-1}$.