Coronal Heating Topology: the Interplay of Current Sheets and Magnetic Field Lines
Abstract
The magnetic topology and field line random walk properties of a nanoflare-heated and magnetically confined corona are investigated in the reduced magnetohydrodynamic regime. Field lines originating from current sheets form coherent structures, called Current Sheet Connected (CSC) regions, extended around them. CSC field line random walk is strongly anisotropic, with preferential diffusion along the current sheets' in-plane length. CSC field line random walk properties remain similar to those of the entire ensemble but exhibit enhanced mean square displacements and separations due to the stronger magnetic field intensities in CSC regions. The implications for particle acceleration and heat transport in the solar corona and wind, and for solar moss formation are discussed.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1706.08983,
title = {Coronal Heating Topology: the Interplay of Current Sheets and Magnetic Field Lines},
author = {A. F. Rappazzo and W. H. Matthaeus and D. Ruffolo and M. Velli and S. Servidio},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1706.08983},
year = {2017}
}
Comments
11 pages, 4 Figures, ApJ (in press)