On the Problem of Magnetic Coronal Heating by Turbulent Relaxation

Details On the Problem of Magnetic Coronal Heating by Turbulent Relaxation On the Problem of Magnetic Coronal Heating by Turbulent Relaxation

Nov 1993

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1993apj...417..781v&link_type=abstract

Astrophysical Journal v.417, p.781

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

29

Magnetohydrodynamics: Mhd, Sun: Corona

Scientific paper

Three developments in the basic theory for heating the solar corona by Taylor-Heyvaerts relaxation are presented. First of all, a general expression is derived for coronal heating in response to small footpoint motions by intermediate relaxation to a state that lies between the ideal MHD state and the lowest energy linear force-free field. It depends on the ratio (ωτr) of the relaxation time (τr) to the timescale (ω-1) for footpoint motions: when this is much smaller than unity, there is complete relaxation to the linear force-free state, and when it is much larger the deviation from the ideal state is small but it is in practice still sufficient to provide the observed heating.
Second, a well-known difficulty with linear force-free fields, namely, that in a semi-infinite region such fields have infinite energy, is resolved: it is shown that the only possible relaxed state is a potential field, so that any excess magnetic helicity is ejected to infinity. Third, it is suggested that in practice the solar corona may be in a state not of complete relaxation but of partial relaxation, in which open fields continually relax to a potential state and eject magnetic helicity into the solar wind, while closed fields relax to a linear force-free state by means of small-scale reconnections.

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