Intermittent heating of the solar corona by MHD turbulence

• Main Author: É. Buchlin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Copernicus Publications 2007-10-01
• Series: Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics
• Online Access: http://www.nonlin-processes-geophys.net/14/649/2007/npg-14-649-2007.pdf

As the dissipation mechanisms considered for the heating of the solar corona would be sufficiently efficient only in the presence of small scales, turbulence is thought to be a key player in the coronal heating processes: it allows indeed to transfer energy from the large scales to these small scales. While Direct numerical simulations which have been performed to investigate the properties of magnetohydrodynamic turbulence in the corona have provided interesting results, they are limited to small Reynolds numbers. We present here a model of coronal loop turbulence involving shell-models and Alfvén waves propagation, allowing the much faster computation of spectra and turbulence statistics at higher Reynolds numbers. We also present first results of the forward-modelling of spectroscopic observables in the UV.