Coronal heating via nanoflares

Conference · Fri Oct 01 04:00:00 EDT 1993

OSTI ID:10189240

Poletto, G ^[1]; Kopp, R ^[2]

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1. Osservatorio Astrofisico di Arcetri, Firenze (Italy)
2. Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)

It has been recently proposed that the coronae of single late-type main sequence stars represent the radiative output from a large number of tiny energy release events, the so-called nanoflares. Although this suggestion is attractive and order of magnitude estimates of the physical parameters involved in the process are consistent with available data, nanoflares have not yet been observed and theoretical descriptions of these phenomena are still very crude. In this paper we examine the temporal behavior of a magnetic flux tube subject to the repeated occurrence of energy release events, randomly distributed in time, and we show that an originally empty cool loop may, in fact, reach typical coronal density and temperature values via nanoflare heating. By choosing physical parameters appropriate to solar conditions we also explore the possibilities for observationally detecting nanoflares. Although the Sun is the only star where nanoflares might be observed, present instrumentation appears to be inadequate for this purpose.

• Research Organization: Los Alamos National Lab., NM (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
• DOE Contract Number: W-7405-ENG-36
• OSTI ID: 10189240
• Report Number(s): LA-UR--93-3343; CONF-9305294--1; ON: DE94000773
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

661300
71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
DIFFERENTIAL EQUATIONS
HEATING
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
OTHER ASPECTS OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE
SOLAR CORONA
SOLAR FLARES
TIME DEPENDENCE