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Register a new userChromospheric Nanoflares as a Source of Coronal Plasma: II. Repeating Nanoflares
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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 idea that warm plasma is supplied to the corona via direct heating of the chromosphere by nanoflares, contrary to the prevailing belief that the corona is heated in-situ and the chromosphere is subsequently energized and ablated by thermal conduction. We found that single (low-frequency) chromospheric nanoflares could not explain the observed intensities, Doppler-shifts, and red/blue asymmetries in Fe XII and XIV emission lines. In the present work we follow up on another suggestion that the corona could be powered by chromospheric nanoflares that repeat on a timescale substantially shorter than the cooling/draining timescale. That is, a single magnetic strand is re-supplied with coronal plasma before the existing plasma has time to cool and drain. We perform a series of hydrodynamic experiments and predict the Fe XII and XIV line intensities, Doppler-shifts, and red/blue asymmetries. We find that our predicted quantities disagree dramatically with observations and fully developed loop structures cannot be created by intermediate- or high-frequency chromospheric nanoflares. We conclude that the mechanism ultimately responsible for producing coronal plasma operates above the chromosphere, but this does not preclude the possibility of a similar mechanism powering the chromosphere; extreme examples of which may be responsible for heating chromospheric plasma to transition region temperatures (e.g. type II spicules).
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The High-resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C) has provided Fe XII 193A images of the upper transition region moss at an unprecedented spatial (~0.3-0.4 arcsec) and temporal (5.5s) resolution. The Hi-C observations show in some moss regions variability on timescales down to ~15s, significantly shorter than the minute scale variability typically found in previous observations of moss, therefore challenging the conclusion of moss being heated in a mostly steady manner. These rapid variability moss regions are located at the footpoints of bright hot coronal loops observed by SDO/AIA in the 94A channel, and by Hinode/XRT. The configuration of these loops is highly dynamic, and suggestive of slipping reconnection. We interpret these events as signatures of heating events associated with reconnection occurring in the overlying hot coronal loops, i.e., coronal nanoflares. We estimate the order of magnitude of the energy in these events to be of at least a few $10^{23}rg, also supporting the nanoflare scenario. These Hi-C observations suggest that future observations at comparable high spatial and temporal resolution, with more extensive temperature coverage are required to determine the exact characteristics of the heating mechanism(s).
The physical processes causing energy exchange between the Suns hot corona and its cool lower atmosphere remain poorly understood. The chromosphere and transition region (TR) form an interface region between the surface and the corona that is highly sensitive to the coronal heating mechanism. High resolution observations with the Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) reveal rapid variability (about 20 to 60 seconds) of intensity and velocity on small spatial scales at the footpoints of hot dynamic coronal loops. The observations are consistent with numerical simulations of heating by beams of non-thermal electrons, which are generated in small impulsive heating events called coronal nanoflares. The accelerated electrons deposit a sizable fraction of their energy in the chromosphere and TR. Our analysis provides tight constraints on the properties of such electron beams and new diagnostics for their presence in the nonflaring corona.
There is a wide consensus that the ubiquitous presence of magnetic reconnection events and the associated impulsive heating (nanoflares) is a strong candidate for solving the solar coronal heating problem. Whether nanoflares accelerate particles to high energies like full-sized flares is unknown. We investigate this question by studying the type III radio bursts that the nanoflares may produce on closed loops. The characteristic frequency-drifts that type III bursts exhibit can be detected using a novel application of the time-lag technique developed by Viall & Klimchuk (2012) even when there are multiple overlapping bursts. We present a simple numerical model that simulates the expected radio emission from nanoflares in an active region (AR), which we use to test and calibrate the technique. We find that in the case of closed loops the frequency spectrum of type III bursts is expected to be extremely steep such that significant emission is produced at a given frequency only for a rather narrow range of loop lengths. We also find that the signature of bursts in the time-lag signal diminishes as: (1)the variety of participating loops within that range increases; (2)the occurrence rate of bursts increases; (3) the duration of bursts increases; and (4) the brightness of the bursts decreases relative to noise. In addition, our model suggests a possible origin of type I bursts as a natural consequence of type III emission in a closed-loop geometry.
We study dynamics of drift waves in the pair plasma of pulsar magnetosphere. It is shown that nonlinear of the drift waves with plasma particles leads to the formation of small scale structures. We show that cyclotron instability developed within these nonlinear structures can be responsible for the formation of nanoshots discovered in the radio emission of the Crab pulsar.
We analyzed the occurrence rates of flares on stars of spectral types K, G, F, and A, observed by Kepler. We found that the histogram of occurrence frequencies of stellar flares is systematically shifted towards a high-energy tail for A-type stars compared to stars of cooler spectral types. We extrapolated the fitted power laws towards flares with smaller energies (nanoflares) and made estimates for total energy flux to stellar atmospheres by flares. We found that for A-type stars the total energy flux density was at least 4-times smaller than for G-stars. We speculate that this deficit in energy supply may explain the lack of hot coronae on A-type stars. Our results indicate an importance of nanoflares for heating and formation of the solar corona.
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