Coronal Heating Distribution due to Alfvenic Driven Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence
Abstract
We establish a direct connection between the heating rate function in the lower open corona and the background radial plasma density and magnetic field profiles in that region. The confinement of the heating between 1-2 solar radius is achieved through Alfven waves injected from the base and reflected due to inhomogeneities of the medium, which provide the necessary counter-propagating fluctuations to sustain quasi-2D MHD turbulence. A phenomenological description is considered as well as direct numerical simulations of the reduced MHD equations. A simple approximation is applied to obtain an explicit relation between the heating rate function q and the Alfven velocity profile. Some example profiles are presented, which show a radial exponentially decaying behavior for the heating, with a dissipation length of the order of the medium inhomogeneity length. Other quantities, such as cross helicity and fluctuations intensity are also analyzed.
- Publication:
-
AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2001
- Bibcode:
- 2001AGUSM..SH22E02D
- Keywords:
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- 7500 SOLAR PHYSICS;
- ASTROPHYSICS;
- AND ASTRONOMY;
- 7509 Corona;
- 7843 Numerical simulation studies;
- 7863 Turbulence