2020/10/07 by Dmitrii Y. Kolotkov, D. Y. Kolotkov, Timothy Duckenfield +2
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrobiology #Astrophysics #Corona (planetary geology) #Coronal hole #Coronal loop #Coronal mass ejection #Coronal plane #Ionosphere and magnetosphere dynamics #Mechanics #Nanoflares #Nuclear physics #Physics #Plasma #Solar and Space Plasma Dynamics #Solar wind #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph.SR
paper · pdf · doi:10.1051/0004-6361/202039095
published as A&A 644, A33 (2020) · Accepted for publication in A&A
arxiv created 2020/10/07 · openalex publication_date 2020/10/13 · arxiv updated 2020/11/25 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Aims. The hot solar corona exists because of the balance between radiative and conductive cooling and some counteracting heating mechanism that remains one of the major puzzles in solar physics. Methods. The coronal thermal equilibrium is perturbed by magnetoacoustic waves, which are abundantly present in the corona, causing a misbalance between the heating and cooling rates. As a consequence of this misbalance, the wave experiences a back-reaction, either losing or gaining energy from the energy supply that heats the plasma, at timescales comparable to the wave period. Results. In particular, the plasma can be subject to wave-induced instability or over-stability, depending on the specific choice of the coronal heating function. In the unstable case, the coronal thermal equilibrium would be violently destroyed, which does not allow for the existence of long-lived plasma structures typical for the corona. Based on this, we constrained the coronal heating function using observations of slow magnetoacoustic waves in various coronal plasma structures.