Related papers: Are Nanoflares Responsible for Coronal Heating?
The energy that heats the magnetically closed solar corona originates in the complex motions of the massive photosphere. Turbulent photospheric convection slowly displaces the footpoints of coronal field lines, causing them to become…
The million degree plasma of the solar corona must be supplied by the underlying layers of the atmosphere. The mechanism and location of energy release, and the precise source of coronal plasma, remain unresolved. In earlier work we pursued…
The coronal heating problem is one of the most critical challenges in solar physics. Recent observations have revealed that small-scale swirls are ubiquitous in the photosphere and chromosphere, suggesting that they may play a significant…
Turbulence, magnetic reconnection, and shocks can be present in explosively unstable plasmas, forming a new electromagnetic environment, which we call here turbulent reconnection, and where spontaneous formation of current sheets takes…
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…
The Sun's corona, heated to temperatures exceeding one million Kelvin despite lying above the cooler photosphere, has puzzled astrophysicists since its discovery in the 1940s. Prevailing theories, based on acoustic and magnetohydrodynamic…
The heating of the solar chromosphere and corona to the observed high temperatures, imply the presence of ongoing heating that balances the strong radiative and thermal conduction losses expected in the solar atmosphere. It has been…
An integrated Magneto-Fluid model, that accords full treatment to the Velocity fields associated with the directed plasma motion, is developed to investigate the dynamics of coronal structures. It is suggested that the interaction of the…
Parker's initial insights from 1958 provided a key causal link between the heating of the solar corona and the acceleration of the solar wind. However, we still do not know what fraction of the solar wind's mass, momentum, and energy flux…
It is clear that the solar corona is being heated and that coronal magnetic fields undergo reconnection all the time. Here we attempt to show that these two facts are in fact related - i.e. coronal reconnection generates heat. This attempt…
In the solar corona, magnetic reconnection occurs due to the finite resistivity of the plasma. At the same time, resistivity leads to ohmic heating. Therefore, the reconnecting current sheet should heat the surrounding plasma. This paper…
We highlight ten key aspects of coronal heating that must be understood before we can consider the problem to be solved. (1) All coronal heating is impulsive. (2) The details of coronal heating matter. (3) The corona is filled with…
The solar coronal heating is a longstanding mystery in astrophysics. Considering that the solar magnetic field is spatially inhomogeneous with considerable magnetic gradient from solar surface to the corona, this work proposes a magnetic…
What physical mechanisms heat the outer solar or stellar atmosphere to million-Kelvin temperatures is a fundamental but long-standing open question. In particular, the solar corona in active region cores contains an even hotter component…
The Sun's corona is millions of degrees hotter than its 5,000 K photosphere. This heating enigma is typically addressed by invoking the deposition at coronal heights of non-thermal energy generated by the interplay between convection and…
A current sheet (CS) is the central structure in the disrupting magnetic configuration during solar eruptions. More than 90\% of the free magnetic energy (the difference between the energy in the non-potential magnetic field and that in the…
Even in the absence of resolved flares, the corona is heated to several million degrees. However, despite its importance for the structure, dynamics, and evolution of the solar atmosphere, the origin of this heating remains poorly…
The corona is a layer of hot plasma that surrounds the Sun, traces out its complex magnetic field, and ultimately expands into interplanetary space as the supersonic solar wind. Although much has been learned in recent decades from advances…
The nanoflare paradigm of coronal heating has proven extremely promising for explaining the presence of hot, multi-million degree loops in the solar corona. In this paradigm, localized heating events supply enough energy to heat the solar…
Determining the heating mechanism (or mechanisms) that causes the outer atmosphere of the Sun, and many other stars, to reach temperatures orders of magnitude higher than their surface temperatures has long been a key problem. For decades…