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Register a new userParticle acceleration and transport in reconnecting twisted loops in a stratified atmosphere
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Twisted coronal loops should be ubiquitous in the solar corona. Twisted magnetic fields contain excess magnetic energy, which can be released during magnetic reconnection, causing solar flares. The aim of this work is to investigate magnetic reconnection, and particle acceleration and transport in kink-unstable twisted coronal loops, with a focus on the effects of resistivity, loop geometry and atmospheric stratification. Another aim is to perform forward-modelling of bremsstrahlung emission and determine the structure of hard X-ray sources. We use a combination of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) and test-particle methods. First, the evolution of the kinking coronal loop is considered using resistive MHD model, incorporating atmospheric stratification and loop curvature. Then, the obtained electric and magnetic fields and density distributions are used to calculate electron and proton trajectories using a guiding-centre approximation, taking into account Coulomb collisions. It is shown that electric fields in twisted coronal loops can effectively accelerate protons and electrons to energies up to 10 MeV. High-energy particles have hard, nearly power-law energy spectra. The volume occupied by high-energy particles demonstrates radial expansion, which results in the expansion of the visible hard X-ray loop and a gradual increase in hard X-ray footpoint area. Synthesised hard X-ray emission reveals strong footpoint sources and the extended coronal source, whose intensity strongly depends on the coronal loop density.
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We study a model of particle acceleration coupled with an MHD model of magnetic reconnection in unstable twisted coronal loops. The kink instability leads to the formation of helical currents with strong parallel electric fields resulting in electron acceleration. The motion of electrons in the electric and magnetic fields of the reconnecting loop is investigated using a test-particle approach taking into account collisional scattering. We discuss the effects of Coulomb collisions and magnetic convergence near loop footpoints on the spatial distribution and energy spectra of high-energy electron populations and possible implications on the hard X-ray emission in solar flares.
While the exact acceleration mechanism of energetic particles during solar flares is (as yet) unknown, magnetic reconnection plays a key role both in the release of stored magnetic energy of the solar corona and the magnetic restructuring during a flare. Recent work has shown that special field lines, called separators, are common sites of reconnection in 3D numerical experiments. To date, 3D separator reconnection sites have received little attention as particle accelerators. We investigate the effectiveness of separator reconnection as a particle acceleration mechanism for electrons and protons. We study the particle acceleration using a relativistic guiding-centre particle code in a time-dependent kinematic model of magnetic reconnection at a separator. The effect upon particle behaviour of initial position, pitch angle and initial kinetic energy are examined in detail, both for specific (single) particle examples and for large distributions of initial conditions. The separator reconnection model contains several free parameters and we study the effect of changing these parameters upon particle acceleration, in particular in view of the final particle energy ranges which agree with observed energy spectra.
Magnetic reconnection and particle acceleration due to the kink instability in twisted coronal loops can be a viable scenario for confined solar flares. Detailed investigation of this phenomenon requires reliable methods for observational detection of magnetic twist in solar flares, which may not be possible solely through extreme UV and soft X-ray thermal emission. Polarisation of microwave emission in flaring loops can be used as one of the detection criteria. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of magnetic twist in flaring coronal loops on the polarisation of gyro-synchrotron microwave (GSMW) emission, and determine whether it could provide a means for magnetic twist detection. We use time-dependent magnetohydrodynamic and test-particle models developed using LARE3D and GCA codes to investigate twisted coronal loops relaxing following the kink-instability. Synthetic GSMW emission maps (I and V Stokes components) are calculated using GX simulator. It is found that flaring twisted coronal loops produce GSMW radiation with a gradient of circular polarisation across the loop. However, these patterns may be visible only for a relatively short period of time due to fast magnetic reconfiguration after the instability. Their visibility also depends on the orientation and position of the loop on solar disk. Typically, it would be difficult to see these characteristic polarisation pattern in a twisted loop seen from the top (close to the centre of the solar disk), but easier in a twisted loop seen from the side (i.e. observed very close to the limb).
The aim of this work is to investigate and characterise particle behaviour in a 3D magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) model of a reconnecting magnetic separator. We use a relativistic guiding-centre test-particle code to investigate electron and proton acceleration in snapshots from 3D MHD separator reconnection experiments, and compare the results with findings from an analytical separator reconnection model studied in a previous investigation. The behaviour and acceleration of large distributions of particles are examined in detail for both analytical and numerical separator reconnection models. Accelerated particle orbit trajectories are shown to follow the separator before leaving the system along the separatrix surface of one of the nulls (determined by particle species) in the system of both models. A sufficiently localised electric field about the separator causes the orbits to appear to follow the spine bounding the separatrix surface field lines instead. We analyse and discuss the locations and spread of accelerated particle orbit final positions, which are seen to change over time in the numerical separator reconnection model. We deduce a simple relationship between the final energy range of particle orbits and the model dimensions, and discuss its implications for observed magnetic separators in the solar corona.
We perform nonlinear MHD simulations to study the propagation of magnetoacoustic waves from the photosphere to the low corona. We focus on a 2D system with a gravitationally stratified atmosphere and three photospheric concentrations of magnetic flux that give rise to a magnetic null point with a magnetic dome topology. We find that a single wavepacket introduced at the lower boundary splits into multiple secondary wavepackets. A portion of the packet refracts towards the null due to the varying Alfven speed. Waves incident on the equipartition contour surrounding the null, where the sound and Alfven speeds coincide, partially transmit, reflect, and mode convert between branches of the local dispersion relation. Approximately $15.5%$ of the wavepackets initial energy ($E_{input}$) converges on the null, mostly as a fast magnetoacoustic wave. Conversion is very efficient: $70%$ of the energy incident on the null is converted to slow modes propagating away from the null, $7%$ leaves as a fast wave, and the remaining $23%$ (0.036$E_{input}$) is locally dissipated. The acoustic energy leaving the null is strongly concentrated along field lines near each of the nulls four separatrices. The portion of the wavepacket that refracts towards the null, and the amount of current accumulation, depends on the vertical and horizontal wavenumbers and the centroid position of the wavepacket as it crosses the photosphere. Regions that refract towards or away from the null do not simply coincide with regions of open versus closed magnetic field or the local field orientation. We also modeled wavepacket propagation using a WKB method and found that it agrees qualitatively, though not quantitatively, with the results of the numerical simulation.
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