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Nature of the heating mechanism for the diffuse solar corona

Nature volume 393, pages 545–547 (1998)Cite this article

Abstract

The temperature of the Sun's outer atmosphere (the corona) exceeds that of the solar surface by about two orders of magnitude, but the nature of the coronal heating mechanisms has long been a mystery1. The corona is a magnetically dominated environment, consisting of a variety of plasma structures including X-ray bright points, coronal holes and coronal loops. The latter are closed magnetic structures that occur over a range of scales and are anchored at each end in the solar surface. Large-scale regions of diffuse emission are made up of many long coronal loops2. Here we present X-ray observations of the diffuse corona from which we deduce its likely heating mechanism. We find that the observed variation in temperature along a loop is highly sensitive to the spatial distribution of the heating. From a comparison of the observations and models we conclude that uniform heating gives the best fit to the loop temperature distribution, enabling us to eliminate previously suggested mechanisms of low-lying heating near the footpoints of a loop. Our findings favour turbulent breaking and reconnection of magnetic field lines as the heating mechanism of the diffuse solar corona.

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Figure 1: Soft X-ray image of the Sun from the Yohkoh Soft X-ray Telescope on 3October 1992.
Figure 2: Observed temperature (in MK = 106K) as a function of distance (in Mm = 1,000 km) along the length of the loop from one coronal footpoint to the other with the error as shown.
Figure 3: Observed temperature as a function of height at the summits of the loops that comprise the arcade whose outermost loop is shown in Fig. 1.

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Acknowledgements

We are most grateful for financial support from the UK Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council and to S. T. Buckland for helpful suggestions. Part of the work was carried out while one of us (J.L.C.) was a visiting professor at the Institute for Space and Astronautical Science (ISAS) of Japan. C.R.F. was supported by a Research Studentship from PPARC. NASA supported the work of L.W.A. The Yohkoh mission and its continued operation are projects of ISAS in Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Mathematical and Computational Sciences Department, St Andrews University, KY16 9SS, St Andrews, UK

    E. R. Priest & T. D. Arber

  2. Mullard Space Science Laboratory, University College London, Holmbury St Mary, Dorking, RH5 6NT, Surrey, UK

    C. R. Foley & J. L. Culhane

  3. Observatoire, 11 Rue de l'Université, F-6700, Strasbourg, France

    J. Heyvaerts

  4. Physics Department, Montana State University, Bozeman, 59717, Montana, USA

    L. W. Acton

Authors
  1. E. R. Priest
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Correspondence to E. R. Priest.

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Priest, E., Foley, C., Heyvaerts, J. et al. Nature of the heating mechanism for the diffuse solar corona. Nature 393, 545–547 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1038/31166

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