The EUI instrument on the Solar Orbiter spacecraft has obtained the most stable, high-resolution images of the solar corona from its orbit with a perihelion near 0.4 au. A sequence of 360 images obtained at 17.1 nm, between 2022 October 25 19:00 and 19:30 UT, is scrutinized. One image pixel corresponds to 148 km at the solar surface. The widely held belief that the outer atmosphere of the Sun is in a continuous state of magnetic turmoil is pitted against the EUI data. The observed plasma variations appear to fall into two classes. By far the dominant behavior is a very low amplitude variation in brightness (1%) in the coronal loops, with larger variations in some footpoint regions. No hints of observable changes in magnetic topology are associated with such small variations. The larger-amplitude, more rapid, rarer, and less well organized changes are associated with flux emergence. It is suggested therefore that while magnetic reconnection drives the latter, most of the active corona is heated with no evidence of a role for large-scale (observable) reconnection. Since most coronal emission-line widths are subsonic, the bulk of coronal heating, if driven by reconnection, can only be of tangentially discontinuous magnetic fields, with angles below about 0.5
In this paper, we propose that flux cancellation on small granular scales (≲1000 km) ubiquitously drives reconnection at a multitude of sites in the low solar atmosphere, contributing to chromospheric/coronal heating and the generation of the solar wind. We analyze the energy conversion in these small-scale flux cancellation events using both analytical models and three-dimensional, resistive magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) simulations. The analytical models—in combination with the latest estimates of flux cancellation rates—allow us to estimate the energy release rates due to cancellation events, which are found to be on the order 106–107erg cm−2s−1, sufficient to heat the chromosphere and corona of the quiet Sun and active regions, and to power the solar wind. The MHD simulations confirm the conversion of energy in reconnecting current sheets, in a geometry representing a small-scale bipole being advected toward an intergranular lane. A ribbon-like jet of heated plasma that is accelerated upward could also escape the Sun as the solar wind in an open-field configuration. We conclude that through two phases of atmospheric energy release—precancellation and cancellation—the cancellation of photospheric magnetic flux fragments and the associated magnetic reconnection may provide a substantial energy and mass flux contribution to coronal heating and solar wind generation.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10481416
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.3847
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Volume:
- 960
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0004-637X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: Article No. 51
- Size(s):
- ["Article No. 51"]
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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