2019/11/26 by James A. Klimchuk · 2 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1007/s11207-019-1562-z
accepted by Solar Physics 16 pages, 1 figure
arxiv created 2019/11/26 · arxiv updated 2020/01/08
For some forms of steady heating, coronal loops are in a state of thermal nonequilibrium and evolve in a manner that includes accelerated cooling, often resulting in the formation of a cold condensation. This is frequently confused with thermal instability, but the two are in fact fundamentally different. We explain the distinction and discuss situations where they may be interconnected. Large-amplitude perturbations, perhaps associated with MHD waves, likely play a role in explaining phenomena that have been attributed to thermal nonequilibrium but also seem to require cross-field communication.