Related papers: Steadiness of coronal heating
The magnetic field in the Sun's corona stores energy that can be released to heat the coronal plasma and drive solar eruptions. Measurements of the global coronal magnetic field have been limited to a few snapshots. We present observations…
Recent imaging observations of EUV line emissions have shown evidence for frequent flare-like events in a majority of the pixels in quiet regions of the solar corona. The changes in coronal emission measure indicate impulsive heating of new…
Coronal plasma in the cores of solar active regions is impulsively heated to more than 5 MK. The nature and location of the magnetic energy source responsible for such impulsive heating is poorly understood. Using observations of seven…
We analyze high cadence high resolution observations of a C3.2 flare obtained by AIA/SDO on August 1, 2010. The flare is a long duration event with soft X-ray and EUV radiation lasting for over four hours. Analysis suggests that magnetic…
The solar corona has been revealed in the past decade to be a highly dynamic nonequilibrium plasma environment. Both the loop-filled coronal base and the extended acceleration region of the solar wind appear to be strongly turbulent, but…
A recent analysis has suggested that the heating of plasma loops in the solar corona depends not just on the Poynting flux but also on processes yet to be identified. This discovery reflects and refines earlier questions such as, why and…
We investigate the spatial and temporal evolution of the heating of the corona of a cool star such as our Sun in a three-dimensional magneto-hydrodynamic (3D MHD) model. We solve the 3D MHD problem numerically in a box representing part of…
We have explored the magnetic flux evolution and temperature variation in a coronal-hole region, using Big Bear Solar Observatory (BBSO) deep magnetograms and {\it SOHO}/EIT images observed from 2005 October 10 to 14. For comparison, we…
Previous observations have not been able to exclude the possibility that high temperature active region loops are actually composed of many small scale threads that are in various stages of heating and cooling and only appear to be in…
The content of coronal material in the quiet Sun is not constant as soft X-ray and high-temperature EUV line observations have shown. New material, probably heated and evaporated from the chromosphere is occasionally injected even in the…
Coronal loops are building blocks of solar active regions. However, their formation mechanism is still not well understood. Here we present direct observational evidence for the formation of coronal loops through magnetic reconnection as…
Spicules have been proposed as significant contributors to the mass and energy balance of the corona. While previous observations have provided a glimpse of short-lived transient brightenings in the corona that are associated with spicules,…
Coronal heating through the explosive release of magnetic energy remains an open problem in solar physics. Recent hydrodynamical models attempt an investigation by placing swarms of 'nanoflares' at random sites and times in modeled…
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…
EUV observations of warm coronal loops suggest that they are bundles of unresolved strands that are heated impulsively to high temperatures by nanoflares. The plasma would then have the observed properties (e.g., excess density compared to…
Coronal rain is the most dramatic cooling phenomenon of the solar corona and an essential diagnostic tool for the coronal heating properties. A puzzling feature of the solar corona, besides the heating, is its EUV filamentary structure and…
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…
Using Hinode EUV Imaging Spectrometer (EIS) spectra recorded daily at Sun center from the end of 2006 to early 2011, we studied the long-term evolution of the quiet corona. The light curves of the higher temperature emission lines exhibit…
Despite decades of studying the Sun, the coronal heating problem remains unsolved. One fundamental issue is that we do not know the spatial scale of the coronal heating mechanism. At a spatial resolution of 1000 km or more it is likely that…
Recent observations suggest that magnetic flux cancellation may play a crucial role in heating the Sun's upper atmosphere (chromosphere, transition region, corona). Here, we intended to validate an analytic model for magnetic reconnection…