Are Spicules Related to Coronal Heating?
Abstract
We suggest that the waxing and waning of chromospheric and coronal heating leads to a dynamic solar atmosphere which, under the right circumstances, may produce spicules. Little is known about the heating process. However, Anderson and Athay (1989a) concluded from their study of chromospheric heating that the heating rate per gram of chromospheric matter is only a small fraction of the heating rate per gram of coronal matter. We postulate that the increased heating rate in the corona is a consequence of heating charged particles as opposed to heating neutral atoms. This leads to a specific degree of hydrogen ionization at which coronal heating begins to predominate over chromospheric heating. It also introduces the likelihood that the waxing and waning of the heating rates will have relatively large consequences in the levels where hydrogen ionization is becoming significant. It is demonstrated that changes in the heating rates are capable of inducing increases and decreases in coronal mass comparable to the mass contained in a typical spicule.
- Publication:
-
Solar Physics
- Pub Date:
- November 2000
- DOI:
- 10.1023/A:1026565113007
- Bibcode:
- 2000SoPh..197...31A
- Keywords:
-
- Hydrogen;
- Atmosphere;
- Heating Rate;
- Heat Rate;
- Heating Process