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Title: TIME-DEPENDENT TURBULENT HEATING OF OPEN FLUX TUBES IN THE CHROMOSPHERE, CORONA, AND SOLAR WIND

Abstract

We investigate several key questions of plasma heating in open-field regions of the corona that connect to the solar wind. We present results for a model of Alfvén-wave-driven turbulence for three typical open magnetic field structures: a polar coronal hole, an open flux tube neighboring an equatorial streamer, and an open flux tube near a strong-field active region. We compare time-steady, one-dimensional turbulent heating models against fully time-dependent three-dimensional reduced-magnetohydrodynamic modeling of BRAID. We find that the time-steady results agree well with time-averaged results from BRAID. The time dependence allows us to investigate the variability of the magnetic fluctuations and of the heating in the corona. The high-frequency tail of the power spectrum of fluctuations forms a power law whose exponent varies with height, and we discuss the possible physical explanation for this behavior. The variability in the heating rate is bursty and nanoflare-like in nature, and we analyze the amount of energy lost via dissipative heating in transient events throughout the simulation. The average energy in these events is 10{sup 21.91} erg, within the “picoflare” range, and many events reach classical “nanoflare” energies. We also estimated the multithermal distribution of temperatures that would result from the heating-rate variability, andmore » found good agreement with observed widths of coronal differential emission measure distributions. The results of the modeling presented in this paper provide compelling evidence that turbulent heating in the solar atmosphere by Alfvén waves accelerates the solar wind in open flux tubes.« less

Authors:
Publication Date:
OSTI Identifier:
22525314
Resource Type:
Journal Article
Journal Name:
Astrophysical Journal
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 811; Journal Issue: 2; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); Journal ID: ISSN 0004-637X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
79 ASTROPHYSICS, COSMOLOGY AND ASTRONOMY; ALFVEN WAVES; CHROMOSPHERE; COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS; EMISSION SPECTRA; FLUCTUATIONS; HEATING RATE; MAGNETIC FIELDS; MAGNETOHYDRODYNAMICS; SOLAR CORONA; SOLAR FLARES; SOLAR WIND; SUN; TIME DEPENDENCE; TRANSIENTS; TURBULENCE; TURBULENT HEATING

Citation Formats

Woolsey, L. N., and Cranmer, S. R., E-mail: lwoolsey@cfa.harvard.edu. TIME-DEPENDENT TURBULENT HEATING OF OPEN FLUX TUBES IN THE CHROMOSPHERE, CORONA, AND SOLAR WIND. United States: N. p., 2015. Web. doi:10.1088/0004-637X/811/2/136.
Woolsey, L. N., & Cranmer, S. R., E-mail: lwoolsey@cfa.harvard.edu. TIME-DEPENDENT TURBULENT HEATING OF OPEN FLUX TUBES IN THE CHROMOSPHERE, CORONA, AND SOLAR WIND. United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/811/2/136
Woolsey, L. N., and Cranmer, S. R., E-mail: lwoolsey@cfa.harvard.edu. 2015. "TIME-DEPENDENT TURBULENT HEATING OF OPEN FLUX TUBES IN THE CHROMOSPHERE, CORONA, AND SOLAR WIND". United States. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/811/2/136.
@article{osti_22525314,
title = {TIME-DEPENDENT TURBULENT HEATING OF OPEN FLUX TUBES IN THE CHROMOSPHERE, CORONA, AND SOLAR WIND},
author = {Woolsey, L. N. and Cranmer, S. R., E-mail: lwoolsey@cfa.harvard.edu},
abstractNote = {We investigate several key questions of plasma heating in open-field regions of the corona that connect to the solar wind. We present results for a model of Alfvén-wave-driven turbulence for three typical open magnetic field structures: a polar coronal hole, an open flux tube neighboring an equatorial streamer, and an open flux tube near a strong-field active region. We compare time-steady, one-dimensional turbulent heating models against fully time-dependent three-dimensional reduced-magnetohydrodynamic modeling of BRAID. We find that the time-steady results agree well with time-averaged results from BRAID. The time dependence allows us to investigate the variability of the magnetic fluctuations and of the heating in the corona. The high-frequency tail of the power spectrum of fluctuations forms a power law whose exponent varies with height, and we discuss the possible physical explanation for this behavior. The variability in the heating rate is bursty and nanoflare-like in nature, and we analyze the amount of energy lost via dissipative heating in transient events throughout the simulation. The average energy in these events is 10{sup 21.91} erg, within the “picoflare” range, and many events reach classical “nanoflare” energies. We also estimated the multithermal distribution of temperatures that would result from the heating-rate variability, and found good agreement with observed widths of coronal differential emission measure distributions. The results of the modeling presented in this paper provide compelling evidence that turbulent heating in the solar atmosphere by Alfvén waves accelerates the solar wind in open flux tubes.},
doi = {10.1088/0004-637X/811/2/136},
url = {https://www.osti.gov/biblio/22525314}, journal = {Astrophysical Journal},
issn = {0004-637X},
number = 2,
volume = 811,
place = {United States},
year = {Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015},
month = {Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 EDT 2015}
}